OIL CITY, Pa. (EYT) — Six students from the Studying, Exploring and Engaging Discipleship (S.E.E.D.) Club of Venango College of Clarion University traveled recently to the heart of New Orleans as an introduction to the vast mission field.
The group’s goal for the trip was to find meaningful, educational work that would help restore a depressed area in New Orleans. S.E.E.D. worked with Camp Restore, a camp that was built to house and coordinate volunteers for the city.
New Orleans has many areas still affected from Hurricane Katrina, which was the deadliest and most destructive Atlantic tropical cyclone of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. At least 1,833 people died in the hurricane and subsequent floods. Total property damage was estimated at $81 billion (2005 USD). S.E.E.D.’s service there provided only a glimpse of physical relief, but their outreach and love-in-action planted many seeds that will continue to grow as more volunteers pour into the city each week to restore and be restored.
S.E.E.D club members worked for four days at various locations on several projects. They worked alongside faculty at the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) Leadership School to fix artwork in the Media Center, create new artwork for bookshelves, organize a teacher’s materials unit and room, and create bulletin boards.