Laurel Rosenbaum, a freshman at Tulane University may be one of the *low key* coolest people out there. Despite her legitimately tiny size, this girl has done pretty frickin huge things. Keep reading and you’ll find out all about ’em!
Major: English
Favorite Baby Animal: Otter
How did you get involved working in Tijuana?
Every high schooler from the town that I grew up in goes over spring break. It’s run through a church, but it’s really not a religious experience…anyone is welcome to go on it. You’re put in teams of 15 people and each team is responsible for building a house in one week for an impoverished Mexican family. The houses aren’t that big or modern, but for families who had nothing, it’s definitely an improvement.
What was the most formative experience you’ve had while working?
During my junior year of high school, one of the daughters of the family we were building a house for gave us all her stuffed animals as a thank you and this little girl literally had nothing. She was probably six and she felt that much gratitude for us. The last day when we give the keys to the families is also always really emotional.
If you could recommend one thing that everyone try after having this experience, what would it be?
Some kind of community service outside of the U.S. because it’s really easy to be distracted when you’re doing community service if you’re just going home every day after it. If you’re in a different country surrounded by people doing the same work as you, you get completely immersed in it for a week and that’s just a really life-changing experience.