Upon arriving back to TCNJ after winter break, students brought with them stories of what they did while they were away. Common answers to, “How did you spend your break?” often entailed family skiing trips and minimum wage jobs. For Sophomore Kristen Kendall, however, her answer to this question wasn’t one you would typically expect, and that’s because she had spent her break giving back to the city of New Orleans.
From the onset, Kristen described how the experience made her come out of her comfort zone.
“It was a 22 hour drive to get to New Orleans where I was in a car with three girls I had never met before, so I was definitely nervous,” said Kristen, “but looking back, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way because they were three girls I probably wouldn’t have gotten to talk to otherwise.”
Arriving in East New Orleans on Jan. 5, Kristen and other students from TCNJ who went through the Alternative Break Club, found themselves in living quarters similar to a that of a hostel.
“I lived in a room full of TCNJ students where there were 20 bunk beds in the room. In all, there were two rooms of girls and two rooms of boys at the site I was staying at,” said Kristen.
But going to NOLA wasn’t any snooze fest as Kristen explained that Project Homecoming, the organization she worked for, definitely kept her busy. From the beginning, all of the TCNJ students were divided into groups in order to designate the chores they would have to do each day.
“You would wake up at seven every morning and each day there was a different chore your group did, whether it be cooking a meal, taking out the garbage or cleaning,” said Kristen.
The group that Kristen was in also determined which work sites she would travel to in New Orleans. After eating breakfast and packing a bagged lunch, she would travel to the site which she would stay at from 8 to 4.
“At one site it was really erie to see a bunch of houses with people’s belongings still in them, even thought it had been seven years since Hurricane Katrina hit,” said Kristen.
Her last day in particular stood out as she went to the Lower 9th Ward, which was the area hit the hardest by Hurricane Katrina.
“I remember seeing all of these colorful, rebuilt houses with such unique architecture and that were purposely designed to withstand another hurricane if it were to hit again. But what I remember distinctly is how a badly hit house was kept in order to remind people of the devastation that ensued in that area,” said Kristen.
Kristen saw the trip as both an eye opening and rewarding one in which she felt proud to be able to give back. She did, however, not fail to mention how people in New Orleans would often question why she was there instead of New Jersey when just two months ago Hurricane Sandy had hit.
With Kristen’s own home having been destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, she imparted words for why she felt the need to come to New Orleans,
“By the time I went to New Orleans, my house had been totally rebuilt and my family was living in it again. There was such an outreach of kindness from the community and that’s what the people of New Orleans needed to see – kindness. Alternative Break Club gave me the opportunity to show them the kindness that my own family saw and the kindness they needed to get back on their feet.”