This Easter Break, 34 Seattle Prep students will partake in a service trip in New Orleans called “Super Build,” which is run by an organization called Shirts Across America that strives to rebuild homes in communities affected by natural disaster.  While in New Orleans, the participates will rebuild and complete houses that were damaged in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina.  Though Hurricane Katrina occurred more than a decade ago, there was over $125 billion dollars in damage, which is why there are still certain residential areas in New Orleans that have not recovered.  Therefore, Seattle Prep has partnered with Shirts Across America during Easter Break for the past few years to help the New Orleans community restore homes to people who lost everything in Hurricane Katrina.  Prior to the upcoming service trip, each student participating in “Super Build” helped raise at least $125 dollars to go towards building supplies and tools.  Jasmine Lee, one of the group leaders, said, “Before we go to New Orleans we have several meetings where all the participants from every school show up to discuss what will take place when we are in New Orleans.  We also march around Green lake after each participant raised $125 to pay for building materials and equipment.”

Once in New Orleans, students participating in this service trip will spend their first day experiencing the city and its culture.  Shirts Across America wants to allow students time to be able to understand the devastation left behind by Katrina before they start building houses.  After the first day, students are assigned into small groups where they are each given a home to work on for the remaining week.  The tasks for the homes can vary from hanging dry wall, mudding, taping and flooring.  Though a large portion of this service trip is spent working on building new homes, participates are still given significant time to spend in the city with their small groups where they are able to try Southern Cuisine, discover the history of New Orleans, and experience the music of New Orleans.  One of the group leaders, Sam Cargal-Bley, stated, “Even though the purpose of this trip is to build houses for people in New Orleans, Shirts Across America really gives the students a chance to spend time and experience the culture.”

At the end of the week when each group has completed their assigned home, some students will get the chance to meet the homeowner of the house that they had just constructed and hear first hand what it was like to live through Hurricane Katrina.  After the retreat was over, Junior Carson Stockwell stated, “This is the most beneficial service project that I’ve been apart of, and it has shown me that even in America were everything seems to be ok there are still several issues involving poverty and housing.”  Though Seattle Prep students are only working with Shirts Across America for one week, the houses that they construct will provide secure housing for New Orleans citizens for the years to come.