Students Lend a Big Hand in the Big Easy
By Sean Maroney

"Just a typical three bedroom bungalow,” said Robert Taylor, a resident of New Orleans.

Or what’s left of it.

Six months ago the Taylor’s home, which he shares with his wife, was under nearly 10 feet of water and about 100 million gallons of crude oil.

"This is what people need to be careful of...” said Taylor as he trips on debris, “all this junk on the floor."

This is the first time the Taylors are going through their belongings. The ruined objects are all that’s left of 20 years of living in their house in St. Bernard's Parish. Twenty years of memories lost.

“Photograph album,” murmured Taylor as he turned the pages discolored by flood water.

“I got to get outside,” said Taylor as he tossed away the album. “I got to get out.”

But there is hope in sight. Close to 8,000 students are spending their Spring Break in New Orleans to help clear out these homes.

"I feel that getting this done and off my mind is quite a load off of my mind,” Taylor said. “I've been living with this for six months."

It takes a group of 10 students about two days to gut an entire house, and then it's on to the next one. And according to the government, there are plenty to go around. Of the 60,000 structures in St. Bernard's Parish alone, only one was not considered a complete loss.

Students are volunteering with Campus Crusade for Christ to help make a difference.

"It's really tough when you're in a house, and you're working on one nail that won't come out of a stud, and you're just pulling and pulling and pulling, and you look down the street, and you see 40 other houses just like that, needing the exact same attention," said Jeremy Angeletti inside the “Light City” camp located in the heart of New Orleans.

Angeletti is a college freshman who's in charge of the camp, which is a gutted warehouse that houses 2,000 students.

"Living in the warehouse is a very humbling experience,” said Angeletti with a knowing smile, “but it's also just a real grounding experience… makes you realize kind of what they've been going through and to see things from their perspective."

It might not be the beach, but student volunteers don't seem to mind.

"It's not fun. It's not clean. It's gross,” said Anne Nguyen, a UNC-CH sophomore, “but you have a feeling that you did something meaningful for other people."

"You just see how much more you have than other people, especially in times of need like this,” said Duke sophomore Timothy Jepson. “It just makes you think how much more you’ve got to help out who's in a lot more need than you are."

And families like the Taylors appreciate it.

"I think it's one of the most magnanimous things that young people could do,” Taylor said. “It's like I said: to sacrifice time, their free time which is so precious to them to do something like this for people they don't even know."

And the memories of this Spring Break will last a lifetime.

If you would like to volunteer, visit http://relief.campuscrusadeforchrist.com/index.php for more information.