MCLA Blog

Each spring, MCLA’s Center for Service organizes an Alternative Spring Break , an opportunity for students to leave campus and volunteer for the week. This year, the group is returning to New Orleans. Teddy Bourgeois (’07) joined the group this year and will be sending dispatches back. This is his second report.

Uprooted trees like this are all over Fountainebleau State park, where we are doing our service work. The park is outside Mandeville, on the northshore of Lake Ponchatrain.

The park lost about 80 percent of its trees during Hurricane Katrina. The National Wildlife Federation has about 100 volunteers signed up each day for the week. Our goal is to plant about 25000 new saplings before weeks end. Today we did about 5000 no sweat. Students have come from all over: Mississippi, Ohio, Florida, even Taiwan.

Emily DeMoor’s good friend’s hosted a bbq for us. I’ve never seen a bigger bowl of Guacamole in my life. Back in the park, we made s’mores, talked by a campfire, and slowly retired to our bunks.