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New Orleans Working Vacations Catch On
Anita McClendon and Felix Wai take a breather while gutting a church in New Orleans. McClendon, 48, is a volunteer from Oakland, and Wai, 25, is the director of the Mardi Gras Service Corps.
(By Linton Weeks -- The Washington Post)
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Through Habitat, volunteers are helping to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. Bates said that 35,000 people have contacted the organization in the past six months about volunteering. Since January, more than 1,300 people have worked for the group in the greater New Orleans area.
"Volunteers are at the core of what we do," Bates said.
Alexis Logan, 22, is one of the Howard University students who will be spending spring break working with Habitat in New Orleans. Logan said that she and the other students won't be acting wild and crazy; they will mostly be cleaning out damaged houses. But they will do a few touristy things.
"We'll be eating out, seeing the sights, enjoying the history of the French Quarter," said Logan, a senior political science major from Texas. "Traditional spring breaks are when students go to tropical islands and do what college students do. . . . This may not be as fun, but it will be just as rewarding in the end."
Mardi Gras Service Corps volunteers are expected to work four to six hours a day. They are relieved of duty in time to hit the town to eat dinner at an oyster house or hear jazz at a nightclub. The group even helps people find temporary lodging, which is rare in the city these days.
"We are housing a lot of people in churches and community centers," Wai said. The group advertises through word of mouth and a Web site, http:/
The program was scheduled to run through April, but Wai said it has been so popular and the need is so great it may be revived in the summer, when more students can come. "There is a lot of energy in the youth of the nation right now," he said.
"Young people have always been excited by New Orleans, by its unique culture and its history," said Sandra S. Shilstone of the city's tourism department. "Now they like being a part of history in the making."
She said she could see other U.S. cities capitalizing on the voluntourism idea because there are lots of areas in lots of cities that need assistance.
Staff writer Susan Kinzie in Washington contributed to this report.
