8P The StStement // Wednesday, March 17T 2010
- PERSONALSTATEMENT

~~~0~ p p

ANOTHER KIND OF VACATIC
BY BEN CRONIN

During spring break, I traveled to
New Orleans with a group of 17
students - including Michigan
football players Craig Roh and Jordan
Reilly - from Young Life College, a
student faith organization at the Uni-
versity, to help families displaced by
Hurricane Katrina. Though it may seem
like the hurricane is a thing of the past,
there was still a lot of work to be done.
After cramming our luggage into the
backoffour vans, we began our 16-hour
trip to Louisiana. In an attempt to get
acclimated to the Southern culture,
Craig, Jordan and I bought black cow-
bq hats during a stopover in Nashville
and listened to country music the entire
way.
While in New Orleans, we stayed in a
village run by the Presbyterian Disaster
Assistance, an organization that coor-
dinates relief efforts in New Orleans.
Though three other groups were staying
there also - about 65 total people - we
only had four showers and a few toilets.
HIEFTJE
From Page 5B
of the year and preservationist of the

After watching an orientation video
on our first full day, the group couldn't
wait to get into the field to work. Dur-
ing the film, one of our group members
noticed there were numbers and big X's
spray painted on the doors of homes
damaged by the storm.
We learned that after the hurricane,
relief workers from the National Guard
and the local forces placed an empha-
sis on saving those still alive, and if a
dead body was found in a house, the
rescuers would mark it with a large X
and the number of dead bodies found
inside so they could be picked up later.
It was tough hearing that, to think of
the people who had no idea if their fam-
ily members were alive or dead, because
their bodies had not yet been identified.
That first day, we began work at a
house in the 17th Ward. The outside of
the house looked decent, but the inside
was a wreck. I started by putting up side
paneling on part of the house, and then
we tore down interior walls and put up
The city is by far one of the nation's
leaders in groundwork for energy
efficiency. While these efforts are
important for Ann Arbor's budget and
for the environment, they can also be
a major economic benefit for the city

when we moved on to tearing up a roof,
I was a great help being the only one
who didn't need a ladder to reach most
of the rafters.
On the sixth day of the trip, we
changed sites and helped put the last
touches on a house that was almost
finished. The homeowner's name was
Wesley, and he told us the water from
Katrina reached up to top of his roof.
new doorframes. We painted a few spots in the house,
The workers who had been at this moved furniture in and cleaned the
site for weeks told us the home's owner floors and windows. When we were
was an elderly woman who showed up done, Wesley's home became the 100th
every day and talked about how blessed house completed by Project Homecom-
she was to have our help. ing - a nonprofit volunteer organiza-
Though I was disappointed that I tion that manages rebuilding projects
hadn't yet met any of the homeowners for Katrina survivors.
of the sites we were working on, I rec- After the completion of the house,
we toured New Orleans
"Actually being in the heart of the with one of the con-
struction coordinators,
destruction and seeing what it is Duncan. We stopped at
the levees in the Lower
still like ...it breaks myheart." Ninth Ward where Dun-

were shocked to see so much empty
space where miles of houses once stood.
Our next stop was a construction
area in the Lower Ninth where Brad
Pitt's charity organization was work-
ingtobuild homes. It was cool to see the
work people have been doing in the city.
Even though the hurricane was five
years ago, people are stilljust starting to
get their lives back. The head of Project
Homecoming said that around 24 per-
cent of people have not been able to get
back to their homes.
On our last night in New Orleans,
we hung out in the French Quarter and
Bourbon Street. We drank coffee, lis-
tened to some great blues bands, and
really got a feel for the character of the
city.
I was devastated when Hurricane
Katrina hit in 2005, but actually being
in the heart of the destruction and see-
ing what it is still like five years after
blows my mind - it breaks my heart. So
many of the people of New Orleans just
need to catch a break, and that is exactly
whatProject Homecoming is there for. I
am so glad to be a part of it.
- Ben Cronin is a Kinesiology
freshman and a center on the men's
basketball team. This Personal
Statementwas adapted from ablog
Cronin kept for mgoblue.com while he
was in New Orleans for springbreak.

ognized that every day, the progress poor l
grew tremendously. Despite the newly- city flo
formed blisters on my hands, I just system
wanted to get as much done for these tion we
people as possible. As'
Our fifth day was fun despite the oncet
intense assignments we were given. Ward,
We used power tools and sledgeham- was ti
mers to demolish 20 feet of cement, and storm.

can explained that the
evee system was the reason the
oded during the hurricane. If the
had been up to date, the destruc-
ould have been minimal.
we stood on the levee that was
thought to protect the Ninth
Duncan told us this part of town
:he most populated before the
We looked over the land and

and the state. A few years ago the city,
along with the University, started an
economic development group called
SPARK that looks for technologically
savvy, cutting edge companies to
come toor startin Ann Arbor. Because
of this collaboration, companies have
migrated to Ann Arbor to work with
the city on new energy ideas.
This group's most notable
accomplishment was establishing
a new Google headquarters for its

AdWorlds division in 2006.
"We're not looking for smoke-stack
industries. We want cutting edge
things to come here and companies
that are really going to be places
where our people want to work,"
Hieftje said.
The city has become a prime
example of pristine and efficient
energy usage. With the mayor's
guidance, Ann Arbor has truly
transformed into an environmentally

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Michigan Sustainability Job Fair
March 19th, 12:30PM-5:30PM
Dana Commons - Internships & Career Positions. Undergrad & Grad Students - All Majors
Interview with Michigan-based companies focused on social
channe and a sustainable GREEN future

friendly, technologically advanced
town.
But the mayor hasn't done all this
work to make Ann Arbor look good
in the public eye. His hope is that
other cities will mirror Ann Arbor's
ideas and apply them to their own
hometowns.
"Our goal is to do what we can in
Ann Arbor but to share what we do
in Ann Arbor with everybody else, so
that people in other cities in Michigan
and people at other universities can
come in and take a look at our LED
street lights and what we're doing
here in Ann Arbor," he said. "We've
done the research, we'll share that
withyu and youcan goback to your
community and do it there." U
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Unusual Music for
Unusual People
tomchavaschproject.com