NEW ORLEANS, La. -- The lawn likely hadn't been cut in years, and Anne Friedlander fired up the lawn mower in ankle-high grass.
Anne cleared the overgrown lawn Tuesday while Leah Beemer, 16, raked up the clippings as she and classmates at Traverse City Christian School helped landscape the yard. Inside, students installed drywall to the home's ceiling and walls.
The one-story, brick house in the New Orleans East neighborhood was one of several homes students refurbished as part of a schoolwide mission trip to Louisiana to assist in Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.
The majority of students were assigned to certain projects at the First Baptist Church of nearby Chalmette, but a delegation of nearly 20 students was sent into New Orleans to work on homes.
"I like the houses better, because we have a smaller group and you get to actually meet the people who live in the houses," said Leah, a sophomore at TC Christian. "I feel like you can do more."
She and many of her peers say they keep the ultimate goal in the back of their minds as they work each day that their efforts will help someone else regain their home.
"Yesterday, I was painting doors, and I was thinking I have to do a good job," Leah said. "People will be looking at it."
The Traverse City workers will spend just a week on their trip, but their labors will add to that of those before them and those yet to come. In some instances, students could move ahead with projects such as drywall installation because a prior group had already finished insulation.
"We insulated an entire home in the last two days," said Les Wiseman, a parent volunteer. "Our task is to come in and start hanging drywall and start making rooms look like rooms again."
It's a process that is slow-going, partly because of the rotation of volunteer groups. But it's one that ultimately yields results, and students said that makes it all the more worthwhile.
"When you drive around the city, there's not a lot of visible damage, but when you get inside, the houses are all gutted," said Jesse Gagnon, 15, a sophomore at the school. "When you're working at a house, you can see more of the progress you're making."
Besides the home in New Orleans East, students worked at a house on Cleveland Street, several blocks from the French Quarter. The homeowner of the latter home recently had surgery and was not at the site Tuesday, parent volunteer Randy Ritsema said. And a neighbor of the east-side home said its residents have been living elsewhere.
But several students spoke fondly of a woman whose home they finished insulating early Tuesday, a homeowner who told them she would not have been able to renovate without them.
Her gratitude, they said, offered a clearer perspective.
"It's really going to make a difference in my life," said junior Chantel Wisniewski, 16, who worked in New Orleans East on Tuesday. "I will know when I go home that I helped someone here."
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