Rebuilding houses, battling termites, planting gardens and passing out hamburgers. That’s how Hazen junior Ethan Knudson and 25 of his churchmates spent their Spring Break in New Orleans.
This was the third year the high school group from Highlands Community Church has spent Spring Break helping rebuild areas hit by Hurricane Katrina.
The group spent Spring Break 2006 in Biloxi, Miss., and Spring Break 2007 in inner-city Nashville, Tenn.
“We were all shocked again by how much there’s left to do,” says Derek Nelson, children and student ministries pastor of Highlands Community Church.
This year’s area high schoolers divided into three groups of six to eight people. Each group helped a New Orleans homeowner.
Knudson’s group spent its first day helping a local man fix the framework of his new home. The man bought a termite-infested fixer-upper after his original home was wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. Knudson and his group also helped the man plant a garden.
The high schoolers later passed out 25 McDonald’s cheeseburgers to homeless people and helped sort clothes at a homeless rescue mission. The group also helped in a charter school being rebuilt.
Another group helped hammer nails and plant a garden for a family of four who until recently had been living in a FEMA trailer for the last three years. Severe medical conditions recently forced the family out of its trailer and into a hotel. The daughter has lost her ability to smell, two family members suffer from severe allergies and another from respiratory problems.
Pastor Nelson describes much of New Orleans as “really hopeless in a lot of ways.” But he says his group got a “ton of work done” this year.
“It’s really cool — the kids come in and bring hope,” he says. “Driving through the Lower Ninth Ward and spending time in any of the communities, there’s still house after house that no one’s living in — destroyed. We’re just trying to bring cheer and hope in trying to rebuild.”
Nelson says the homeowners the students helped this year were in tears of joy.
Each high school student raised $1,000 for Spring Break in New Orleans. The students decide each year where they would like to spend their Spring Break helping others.
“The kids definitely get excited about not just sitting around at home but going and doing something different,” Nelson says.
Knudson is one of four high schoolers who has gone on the church’s Spring Break all three years.
“I love doing it,” he says. “I really love helping people. It’s an incredible feeling after you’ve helped out. I just want that experience again and again.”
The high school group from Highlands Community Church has not yet decided where to spend Spring Break 2009.
Emily Garland can be reached at emily.garland@reporternewspapers.com or (425) 255-3484, ext. 5052.
