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Last year I had the perfect spring break. I traveled with a large group of good friends to the two places I have dreamed of traveling too my entire life, Barcelona and Italy. In Barcelona I went clubbing till 4am and danced with a beautiful girl at a Jack Johnson concert. In Italy I did a pub crawl on the Spanish steps, stood in awe at the Sistine Chapel, and climbed the top of the Duomo. The only problems I faced was to whether to drink Sangria or Tequila.
This year not knowing where I would be in two months after I graduate I figured I would save money and refrain from participating in a traditional spring break, however, I still wanted to do something. I found out about the alternative spring break through the UMass Hillel; which was assisting in the hurricane relief effort in New Orleans. Not having participated in much community service since leaving high school, I thought it would be a good chance to give back. Plus it would not be a hard hit on the wallet, and I would have the chance to go to New Orleans, a place I have wanted to visit since the Patriots were in the 1997 Super Bowl against the Packers. So along with about twenty-five people from UMass we made the trek down to New Orleans.

Traveling down I didn't know what to expect from the trip. I knew it had been a year and half since the storm hit so how much work could it be? The first night I stayed with a friend who lives in New Orleans who was also participating. She lives in the 20% that didn't get hit hard from Hurricane Katrina; so my first impression of New Orleans was it seemed like a perfectly functional city. The French Quarter was as crazy as I thought it would be. The next day the program started and we learned some background on the hurricane. Some of things they told us I already knew, while others I was surprised about. Whoever we talked with down there kept reiterating the fact that it was a man-made disaster because the levies had not been built right, that FEMA was completely incompetent, and the bureaucracy of all levels of government had prevented the aide money from going to where it needs to go.
My first day of work consisted of me taking out nails of a home so it would be easy for the plasterers to come through. My second day of work I was tearing up drywall with a sledgehammer. The next two days there were about a hundred and fifty of us who cleaned a children's park, which was untended to since the storm and by the time we left it looked new. My

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