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Trading bikinis and beers for paintbrushes and brooms
(by Megan Burrow - April 23, 2008)
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Photos courtesy of Eleni Stavrou
Eleni Stavrou and other
Dartmouth students paint the playground at a charter school. Stavrou went to
New Orleans on her spring break to volunteer and help the city recover.
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Spring break usually means throngs of college students swarming beach resorts in Cancun and
Acapulco , raucous partying and fun in the sun. It’s a time to relax and have some fun before the stress of term papers and finals kicks in.
But safety can be a concern. The combination of alcohol, sun, and promiscuity prevalent on spring break trips can be dangerous, sometimes ending with dire consequences. What many students regard as a right of passage, parents often view with trepidation.
This year Eleni Stavrou of the
Township of
Washington wanted to do something a little different.
The 19-year-old pre-med neuroscience major traveled to New Orleans with 11 of her fellow
Dartmouth students to help the city recover, which three years later is still reeling from the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.
Many schools are now providing service trips as an alternative to traditional spring break destinations, and students have been taking advantage of the opportunity to help others while spending time with their friends.
“It’s a really nice thing for college kids to do,” Stavrou said. “Instead of going to the spring break hotspots, you can take a week to do something that really helps the country.”
Stavrou’s parents, Andreas and Maria, expressed pride in their daughter’s decision to help others in need. “We are very proud of her for going down there,” Maria said. “Seeing what she saw, Eleni came back with a whole new perspective of what the poor people in are going through,” said Andreas. “Three years have gone by [since Hurricane Katrina] and people are still suffering.”
The group stayed in the Hands On building, an organization that provides housing for volunteers for a nominal fee and offers a variety of community service opportunities.
Each day, Stavrou and her friends worked in different ways to help the people of
New Orleans . They volunteered with Second Harvest, a hunger relief organization which serves all of New Orleans and parts of Louisiana and
Mississippi , picking over 35,000 pounds of fruit for the food bank at cooperating orchards.
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Eleni Stavrou with several of the students of
Singleton
School . The middle school was changed to a K-8 school after the hurricane.
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Another day, they worked at an animal shelter cleaning cages and walking and feeding the animals. Shortly after the hurricane, the Humane Society estimated that as many as 50,000 dogs, cats, birds and other pets may have been left behind in the wake of Katrina. Animal Rescue New Orleans is the only animal shelter in the city that does not euthanize.
The shelter is down to three employees from 20 and relies on volunteers to stay open and running. There are many adoption programs in the city, but, Stavrou said, because of the sheer number of abandoned animals it is difficult to find them all loving homes.
Many of the elementary schools in the city were completely destroyed. The group went to a charter school and painted hopscotch and tic-tac-toe boards in the playground. They also went to
Singleton
School , an inner city school middle school, now a K-8 school after absorbing elementary students displaced by the hurricane. Stavrou volunteered as a teacher’s aide in a fourth grade class, at one point having to help the teacher break up a fight.
The students cleaned up yards, scrubbed the rust off fences, and washed flood lines off the walls of houses, some as high as seven feet.
Stavrou said one of the most striking things about the trip was the disparity between rich and poor sections of the city. The affluent, tourist filled areas seemed to have made a complete recovery, while the poorer sections, like the lower ninth ward, were still left in ruins.
“There were patches of land where houses were completely demolished, and the houses that remain, roofs are caving in,” Stavrou said. “Each door has an X on it with the markings of government agencies, and the numbers of how many bodies and dead animals they found inside. Seeing those numbers made things a lot more real.”
Looking back on the trip, the thing Stavrou said she will most remember was the gratitude expressed everywhere the group went. “People went out of their way to thank us, to tell us that us giving up our spring break to help was really appreciated. I would absolutely do it again.”
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