Thousands of Hurricane Katrina survivors from New Orleans are bussed to a Red Cross shelter in the Houston Astrodome.
Photo courtesy of FEMA/Andrea Booher, photographer.
Strong people make strong communities. As the premier land-grant institution, Michigan State University has long taken seriously the responsibility of public universities to the society it serves. By engaging people from all backgrounds, through elements as diverse as MSU Extension and the Office of Outreach & Engagement, we can work to understand and meet the needs of individuals and their communities.
MSU volunteers at a vacant orphanage where they stayed during their New Orleans Summer Project trip.
Photo courtesy of Joyce Grant.
This summer, nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, a group of MSU faculty, staff and students traveled to the New Orleans area for a month. Their mission: to help rehabilitate schools and get students that had been displaced caught up on their academics.
"There are tons of people volunteering in New Orleans and rebuilding houses and businesses," says Joyce Grant, a professor in the College of Education and leader of the New Orleans Summer Project. "We thought more attention needed to be paid to getting the schools back up and running."
While working in several school districts that reopened in limited capacity, the MSU students and faculty taught high school students preparing for standardized tests and elementary students catching up on almost a year of schooling they missed or spent in other districts. The MSU volunteers represented a wide cross section of campus – including librarians and psychologists – offering a variety of skills and abilities to those they helped.
"I think the greatest service that I and the rest of the members of our group provided was letting these kids know that someone cares about them, someone wants to hear what they have to say, that someone wants to be their friend," says James Schneidewind, a social relations senior in James Madison College, who took part in the project.
Learn More
The New Orleans Summer Project
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