Earlier this year, I applied to go on a service trip to New Orleans, Louisiana. I'll be honest, I applied mostly for the travel opportunity and I viewed the service aspect as an added benefit. I like volunteering, but I love traveling and the opportunity to travel to a place I've always dreamt of going for a relatively low cost was something I could not pass up.
I knew very little about the service I would be doing before arriving in New Orleans. I knew I would be working with the St. Bernard Project, rebuilding and remodeling homes that were affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I had never done any type of construction work before this experience, and I was worried that my lack of experience would diminish my ability to be truly helpful.
While I was fundraising for the trip expenses at my small liberal arts school in New Jersey, I had many people ask why we weren't just going down to the shore to help victims of Superstorm Sandy. "Katrina happened ten years ago!" They would shout at me. "They don't need help anymore!" I began to wonder what my impact could be ten years after the storm.
After my volunteering experience, I now believe that you cannot truly imagine the destruction and devastation brought about by a natural disaster until you see it yourself. Pictures on television do not do it justice.
My experience with the St. Bernard Project has been one of the most enriching, empowering, and humbling experiences of my life thus far. I learned that using a power saw wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be, and that painting two by fours can actually be pretty fun. I saw my hard work come to fruition in a more tangible manner than ever before. I wasn't just seeing an A at the top of my paper, but a fence being built, or the bare bones of a house being protected from mold. As a young girl with no construction experience, this was extremely empowering. I learned I have the ability to build things with my hands - I don't need a big, strong construction man to do those things for me.
The best part of my experience was how much it humbled me. I never realized the meaning of "I lost everything," until my site supervisor told me the story of how Hurricane Katrina completely devastated his life. It put everything into perspective for me and made me realize that the service trip wasn't about me. It was about those that I was serving. It no longer mattered that I was staying in a scurvy church with dirty showers, or that I had only slept four hours the night before because I had to put myself aside in order to work hard for those who needed help.
A service trip is a great excuse to travel for a low cost, but it can also be an enlightening and uplifting experience that can put you more in touch with yourself, your own privilege, and the experiences of others.
To learn more about the St. Bernard Project, visit www.stbernardproject.org. To learn about long-term service opportunities, explore the opportunities that AmeriCorps has to offer.
