MOUNT VERNON – A group of 25 Cornell College students, faculty and staff departs Friday morning for Louisiana, where they will spend their spring break working at a relief center in Chalmette, outside of New Orleans, distributing clothing and food and meeting residents whose lives were disrupted by last summer’s hurricanes.
“I got involved with this
Alternative Spring Break trip because I wanted to help the hurricane victims in any way I could,” said Emily Decker, a junior from Monticello and one of 22 students going on the trip.
“We may encounter people who are frustrated for a variety of reasons: government involvement, losing their home, losing loved ones and just being overwhelmed with the situation as a whole. Whether we are able to provide more instrumental or emotional support, I hope that we can make an impact while we are down there,” Decker said.
Cornell’s spring break runs March 30 to April 9. On April 29 at Cornell’s 10th annual Student Symposium, several students from the trip are scheduled to give presentations on their experience.
Since September, Cornell’s assistance to the Gulf Coast region includes over $1,500 to relief agencies, more than 800 hours of service to the MidAmerica Housing Partnership to prepare apartments in Cedar Rapids for displaced residents and donated luggage transported to Louisiana shelters by students in a
French class that attended a Cajun music festival in Lafayette, La., in September.
This is Cornell’s fifth annual Alternative Spring Break trip. Previous groups have traveled to Lexington, Va., and Birmingham, Ala., to build Habitat for Humanity houses, Nashville, Tenn., to work at a homeless shelter, and Radford, Va., to assist low-income children.
