The Red and Black

Issue date: 1/10/08 Section: News

Media Credit: RICHARD HAMM A sign from a New Orleans, La., resident on Oct. 26, 2007 indicates his upcoming return. Entire blocks often still are abandoned in some areas of the city. [Click to enlarge]

A week after the Bulldogs' victory over Hawai'i in New Orleans, another group of University students are traveling to the Big Easy. However, their trip will serve a different purpose - community service.

Thirty students from the Leonard Leadership Scholars Program in the University's Terry College of Business will spend today through Sunday in New Orleans working with Habitat for Humanity, an organization that helps lower-income individuals build homes.

"Each scholar's class chooses a service learning project to complete in its last semester of the program," Brooke Burlingame, a leadership scholar in the program, wrote in an e-mail. "The service project provides a way for us to apply our leadership skills and make an impact in our community."

Students will stay at Habitat for Humanity's Camp Hope in New Orleans and work in St. Bernard Parish, a county east of the city. This and other areas around New Orleans have not improved dramatically since Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the area in 2005, Burlingame, wrote, which is why they decided to go.

"I think the project was chosen because our collective class highly values civic responsibility. It has been over two years since Katrina ripped through New Orleans, and there are still many areas that look as if they were hit yesterday," she wrote. "So much more work is needed, and I think each member of my class recognized how we could help and make an impact."

The 2007 class of Leonard Leadership Scholars also traveled to New Orleans for its service project, and its enthusiasm was another reason the 2008 class chose the Crescent City for this year's trip, said Lauren Berardicurti, a leadership scholar in the program.

"The class ahead of us went last year and said they had a great experience, but there was still a lot to be done," she said Wednesday in a telephone interview. "It's one thing to read about (New Orleans) in the paper, but it's another thing to actually go there and see it for yourself."

During the day, students "will be doing civic duties - working around the parish, cleaning up, things like that," Berardicurti said. After each day's work, they will gather and discuss what they did and the impact they are having on the city.

The service project is one part of the scholarship program, which is designed to help students become leaders in their community, she said.

"It's a two-year program where you take three leadership classes and learn about being a leader," Berardicurti said. "(The program) promotes community service and involvement."

As part of the Institute for Leadership Advancement in the Terry College of Business, the program gives participating students "personal assessments of their leadership skills, access to a faculty mentor, innovative leadership classes … and exciting networking and professional events," according to the program's Web site.

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