Release date: 10-Mar-06
Contact: Beverly Cox Clark at 404-712-8780 or beverly.clark@emory.edu

Gulf Coast Is Spring Break Destination for Emory Students

Dozens of Emory University students will join college students from across the nation at the Gulf Coast next week for spring break, working to help clean up and rebuild the area still devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Emory's Alternative Spring Break group will lead 60 students, including 15 from Emory's Oxford College, to Waveland, Miss., for a service trip March 12-18. In addition, a group from Emory's Candler School of Theology is headed to New Orleans, and members of Emory Hillel are joining a national Hillel effort in Biloxi, Miss.

The Alternative Spring Break group is working with Community Collaborations International (communitycollaborations.org), a humanitarian organization that has set up a camp specifically for college students who are coming to the area to do relief work. The Emory team will join 350 students from around the country who will work on activities ranging from debris and tree removal to construction work, as well as organizing donated items, preparing volunteer meals, data entry and warehouse work.

Emory senior Gillian Pervere, president of the student-run group, says Community Collaborations works with a consortium of relief providers, and maintains a comprehensive database of work projects and volunteer accommodations. The goal is to place volunteers where they are needed most and to get the most value out of each volunteer hour, she says.

Alternative Spring Break has led service trips for several years, but this year the group had its largest turnout to date, Pervere says. "I think the idea of hurricane relief really attracted people to the program. It's rewarding and a great way to get connected with other students at Emory and around the country. A lot of college students have trouble finding the time to volunteer, and this gives them the opportunity to devote a week to helping others."

Master of divinity student Lane Cotton Winn will lead 16 of her Candler School of Theology classmates to her hometown of New Orleans March 10-16. They will be working through the United Methodist Committee on Relief, the denomination's primary disaster response organization, to gut homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

"The city is still devastated, and there is a lot of clean up that remains to be done. Many areas are not even at the rebuilding stage yet. Our goal during the short time we're there is to clear out three to four houses," says Winn.

Students from Emory Hillel will work with students and staff from nine other schools to repair roofs on residential houses damaged by Katrina. They also will meet with community members and engage in group reflection sessions on the meaning of this work from a Jewish perspective.

"This work is about community building and social justice -- the core elements of Emory Hillel's focus on campus," said Michael Rabkin, Emory Hillel director. "My hope is that these students bring the spirit of their experience home with them to add value to the Emory campus community."

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For more than a decade Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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