Junior Experience: New Orleans

Coordinator for Junior Experience and Community Service Laura Milton and Assistant Dean of Students and band director David Guidi drove 12 students to New Orleans, Louisiana for a 10-day service trip. Students engaged in some sort of community service each day of the trip and had the opportunity to interact with people of all ages and backgrounds.

The group played games and chatted with residents at St. Margaret’s nursing home, prepared and served a meal to the homeless at the New Orleans Mission, passed out food and restocked items at the Love in Action food pantry, worked with children at the Fischer Projects’ Kids Club, helped the Apex Youth center prepare for their summer camp, and even travelled out to Barataria Preserve to help park rangers tag non-indigenous trees and learn about the unique environment in the area. 

One student, discussing the group’s work at the food pantry, remarked that “it felt really gratifying to actually see the faces of the people that we were helping.”

The group also had the opportunity to experience the culture of New Orleans by sampling local foods such as beignets, jambalaya, muffalettas and po’boys, attending a jazz performance at Preservation Hall, visiting the Hurricane Katrina exhibit at the Presbytère museum and going on a swamp tour.

Although New Orleans is only 8 hours from Austin, the experience was eye-opening and very different from what students and faculty are used to at home. Looking back on all of their hard work, one student wrote that working at the homeless shelter “was the most fulfilling thing I have ever done in my life…this has actually changed my life because I want to do this when I get back to Texas…I loved doing this and am so happy that I could make even a tiny positive change in someone’s day.”