Students Reflect on Gulf Volunteer Work

Some had gutted homes over spring break. Others had worked with New Orleans natives to create a rebuilding plan for the rest of the community.

Twenty-eight students from across the University who had spent breaks volunteering in Louisiana and Mississippi gathered for the first time yesterday night for “Rebuilding The Gulf Cost: What Can We Do To Help?”

Their ideas reflected the differences in their volunteer experiences. Some undergraduates who had helped film oral histories laid out plans for a policy group at the Institute of Politics.

S. Margaret Spivey ’08, who had volunteered in Moss Point, a small town in Mississippi that had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina, announced her hopes to create an online database to link volunteers to residents needing help drywalling homes or clearing out debris. Others who had worked in public schools in New Orleans talked about the possibility of a long-term campaign to raise money and awareness both on campus and elswhere in Cambridge.

Graduate students who had served as consultants to the reconstruction effort rather than directly rebuilding homes stressed the need to convey information to residents. New Orleanians needed to know how high to elevate homes or whether public schools would reopen. Many of their choices hinge on the long-delayed mayoral election; the primary will be held this Saturday.

Some at the meeting came from New Orleans families. They talked about the possibility of contacting former Gulf residents who had relocated to Cambridge.

Sara C. Ehrhardt, a first-year at the Kennedy School of Government, had dedicated her spring break to researching flood mitigation and creating a plan for advocacy. Some 20 other Harvard graduate students had also worked in the community with her, and she and two others—one considering a doctorate, the other studying at the Law School—had come to the meeting as well to share their experiences with the undergraduates.

“It’s important to talk about what we’ve seen,” Ehrhardt said. “We have a lot more power to keep this on the public radar.”

—Staff writer April H.N. Yee can be reached at aprilyee@fas.harvard.edu.