The depraved exploits of traditional spring breakers are flashing on the big screens. But each year, groups from schools all over the country set out on alternative spring breaks to help give back to the community.
This year, a group from USF St. Petersburg went to New Orleans to help with the continued cleanup from Hurricane Katrina.
Sixteen students and two advisors were in New Orleans from the Monday of spring break to the following Saturday. The group helped clean up several yacht clubs in the area.
Terehas Henry, a 22-year-old senior from West Palm Beach, wanted to do something productive with her spring break.
“I wanted to be able to help out in some way,” she said. “I can’t send them money. I had never been. I wanted to see what it looked like. If it was like what I had seen on the news. What I had seen in magazines.”
She said the work wasn’t hard for her. But some of the other students had to take a boat out to remove large pieces of debris from the water.
“I was wondering why more wasn’t done,” Henry said. “But imagine right after. I was humbled. I wasn’t quick to say they should do this or they should do that.”
None of the students on the trip knew what to expect. “We were all excited and curious,” she said.
It’s been six years since the category five hurricane made landfall in Louisiana and devastated the city of New Orleans. In total, 1,464 died in Louisiana from the storm.
Henry said some people were still unhappy because they felt more should have been done. One woman told her that they didn’t want certain people to come back to the areas near the yacht clubs.
Some people may still be mad but Henry felt that the citizens of New Orleans are laid back and easy going, despite the tragedy.
The levees in New Orleans, which were intended to keep water out of the city, broke under the force of the storm. They were only designed to withstand a category three hurricane. The result was parts of New Orleans under as much as 20 feet of water.
In the aftermath of the storm, the federal government didn’t react to the disaster fast enough and aid was slow to arrive or didn’t come. The storm forced the New Orleans Hornets of the NBA to play in Oklahoma City for two years and the Saints of the NFL to play seven of their games in San Antonio.
The downtown area may not look like it was ever flooded, but areas like the Ninth Ward are still devastated.
“It’s important for people to see for themselves,” Henry said. “To meet the people who experienced it, that were there.”
At one point, a professor from Tulane University stopped by to tell the USFSP students that they were helping to restore faith in young people.
Henry says that made the trip worth it.
She recommends students go on an alternative spring break rather than the traditional one. They will get a lot more out of it, she said.
