A Morinville student says she's had her eyes opened after spending spring break rebuilding homes devastated by the hurricane in New Orleans.
Natalie Lamer was one of about 21 Morinville Community High School students who spent spring break in New Orleans as part of an ongoing effort by the Oblate Youth Ministries to help residents recover from 2005's Hurricane Katrina.
The group spent about nine days in the hot, sticky weather renovating three homes in the city, said Lamer, 16. In the process, she spoke with a lot of local students, many of whom had lost family members due to the crime or the hurricane.
"It's an eye opener for me," she said. "It really made me be happy for what I had."
Harsh conditions
Hurricane Katrina was one of the strongest storms to hit the coast of the United States in the last 100 years, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Centre. It destroyed much of New Orleans when it flooded the city in 2005.
There are whole sections of the city that have yet to be rebuilt or even touched since the hurricane, says Neil Korotash, one of the teachers on the trip. "There are whole sections that are still levelled." Some homes in the city's ninth ward — one of the hardest hit areas — still have messages spray-painted on doors indicating the number of bodies rescuers found inside.
He and the students arrived in New Orleans on March 24. Staying at the St. Jude Community Centre, they spent nine days working on three homes in one of the less damaged parts of the city. The trip was meant to give students a chance to experience a culture and level of poverty far removed from their own.
"The faith community there is so strong," Korotash said. People said, "God bless you" instead of good morning, for example, and sung hymns while they worked.
Students at Cathedral Academy, a local elementary school they visited, all wore uniforms and had a parking lot for a playground. Most were black, many came from poor families, and almost all lacked father figures at home.
Just about all the students at the school had someone in their family who had died in the hurricane or been killed in a crime, Korotash said. Three of the students had members of their families killed the week before the Morinville students arrived.
Despite that the students were almost universally happy.
"They just latched onto our students," Korotash said, sending a powerful message. "No matter how bad you think you have it, there's always a way to make the best of it."
Rebuilding homes and people
While much of the city has been rebuilt, Korotash said many homes had slipshod repairs done and still aren't liveable.
The families they worked with had fallen on hard times, he continued. One man survived the hurricane only to be paralyzed by a drunk driver two years later. One mother and her daughter had not been able to live in their home for two years because of mould.
Lamer said she and her fellow students painted walls, cleaned mould, fixed roofs and hammered drywall. "It was gross," she said of many of the homes that had extensive water damage.
The students ate with local homeless families each day at the community centre, Korotash said, many who told them amazing stories of survival and resilience. One man told him about how he floated his blind grandmother out of her flooding house by blowing air into jeans he fashioned into inner tubes.
Complete strangers would come up to them and thank them for their efforts, Lamer said.
"I really think it's great what you guys are doing," one woman told her. "It really solidifies to us that we haven't been forgotten and that people are still caring."
Lamer said she and the others on the trip are now thinking about doing a fundraiser for New Orleans.
It felt really good to be able to help somebody, she continued.
"Just for the reaction of the people and the families that we helped, it was worth everything."
