By Jason Gulya, NSNS Staff Writer

Across the country, students are returning from their spring breaks. Some students went away on vacation, some caught up on missed sleep. Thousands of others worked in areas of turmoil, participating in Alternative Spring Breaks.

Along with providing valuable community service in places such as New Orleans—still suffering from Hurricane Katrina—the students who participate in service trips build coalitions that last beyond the spring break week. Alternative Spring Breaks, these students say, are a source of friendship between individuals and between different colleges and campuses.

On one trip to Louisiana, the students stayed at a Methodist Church at Kenner (a suburb just outside of New Orleans), and gutted demolished homes, painted newly rebuilt ones, and conversed and experienced the aura that is New Orleans. In the church—a modest edifice with tiny rooms and four showers—stayed 100 temporary denizens. These students came from various campuses of Rutgers University (one group came from College Avenue Campus, another from Dougl**** College, another from Livingston Campus, another from Newark Campus), and from Montclaire University. Stockton College students also traveled to New Orleans at this time, doing community service with an organization called Acorn.

Lodging at the church gave the students an opportunity to work with and live with others from different colleges. According to Kathleen Connelly, a student from Barnard College who participated in a trip, “It was great to meet people from all over Rutgers and the different colleges that were there, and I think we’ll be good friends for a really long time.”

Students aren’t the only ones forging new bonds on these trips. Various trip organizers needed to work together to create a beneficial experience for all.

This was the second time in two years that Rutgers University sent down students to New Orleans; last spring break students worked with an organization called Common Ground Relief Project, centered in the upper 9th Ward.

Most of the students at the church worked on “gutting” homes in New Orleans; this means, basically, that the homes were stripped of everything. First, family possessions were taken out of the house, then the walls, floors, and ceilings were stripped down until there was only a framework where there used to be a home. Gutting is a necessary step in rebuilding the city—high water levels destroyed most of the houses, and the subsequent decay has made the homes unsafe. The hope is that if the foundations are strong enough, the houses will be built up again after they are gutted. Some of the students are hopeful that they will be able to return to the city to do more work during the summer.