Montreal, August 25, 2010. Five years after the passage of Hurricane Katrina, volunteers from all over North America are still making their way south to help rebuild New Orleans. In St. Bernard Parish where 70% of the houses were destroyed, streets are still lined up with almost endless lines of bare concrete slabs where houses used to stand. Determined to help with the reconstruction of the city, a Vanier College team took part in a New Orleans Habitat for Humanity Collegiate Challenge in June 2010. Ten students from the Vanier Architectural Technology program accompanied by three members of faculty and staff, spent ten days in Louisiana.
During the first week of their trip, the Vanier group stayed at Camp Hope, a volunteer base camp located in a former school while they worked at various Habitat for Humanity construction sites. Students lived in barracks-style sleeping quarters on the second floor of the building where a high water mark on the wall showed that flood waters had risen to twelve feet above the ground floor. While there, Vanier students met other volunteers among the more than one hundred college students who came from all over the U.S.
Work on Habitat for Humanity construction sites
“We worked on five different houses on the same street and attended a handing over ceremony,” says Jeff Johnston, the Architectural Technology teacher who led the Vanier group. The construction work drew on knowledge and expertise the students have acquired in their studies at Vanier. “They undertook roof sheeting, formwork, unloading trucks, concrete mixing and pouring, concrete slab demolition with sledgehammers, landscaping, painting, and excavation – everything necessary to make repairs. As well, the Vanier students had more experience than our site bosses and were often called upon to correct work carried out by others.”
By all accounts the students enjoyed the work and despite the heat, were in good spirits. Indeed, the major challenge was the weather with temperatures of 102 F and 80% humidity. So the heavy manual labour was punctuated with frequent stops for water and rest in the shade to prevent heat stroke.
Visiting New Orleans
During their second week, the group moved to the French Quarter of New Orleans for a few days of architecture-based study, education and sight-seeing. “This is definitely an experience we would like to repeat in the future,” indicates a glowing Jeff Johnston. “Not only did we make an important contribution to the Habitat for Humanity reconstruction efforts, but for our Architectural Technology students, visiting New Orleans was an added bonus – it’s a unique historic city with many interesting architectural details and styles.”
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