Nawleanteer Brigades

why it's important:

The story of College Students for New Orleans (CSNO) began with the advice of Adam Kronenberg’s sister to volunteer in New Orleans after she had done so in November 2006. Taking up her advice, Adam and 5 other students accomplished a one-week volunteer road trip to New Orleans in March 2007. The six students assisted the city and its residents by gutting houses, tutoring, and helping at an animal shelter and elderly home.
The group returned to San Diego and a couple of the students established a San Diego State University student organization, College Students for New Orleans. Through a large effort in a short period of time, CSNO had a second trip planned to volunteer in August 2007 with 12 students. Upon returning there was an incredible amount of energy within the group after a memorable effort in New Orleans between the 12 volunteers.
In the Spring of 2008 SDSU sponsored 22 students to volunteer in New Orleans. The momentum of this trip led to two more trips over the summer. Clearly, the SDSU students are eager to aid in New Orleans and CSNO has been providing this outlet.
Following the fourth venture, a plan was devised so that student volunteer trips to New Orleans would be continuous each break. This includes: Spring Break, Winter Break and two Summer Break trips. Thus far in our trips, students have gutted and rebuilt homes, tutored youths, distributed food to homeless people and took care of rescued animals.
Experts estimate that it will take 10-15 years for New Orleans to be completely rebuilt and CSNO is confident that our students will prolong this effort until we see that day.

the plan of action:

• Trips:
o Our main strategy for delivering trips is planning out all of the logistics in a very effective manner. Because CSNO has already planned and executed 4 trips, the logistics of a trip to New Orleans are well established.
 Over our past trips, we have made great connections with non-profit organizations in New Orleans that coincide with our goals. We plan on continuing to work with both St. Bernard Project and America’s Second Harvest. Additionally, we will keep our minds open for any other non-profit groups that we could successfully volunteer with while in New Orleans.
 We can either fly or rent 12 or 15 passenger vans and drive out there. While driving is the most cost efficient way, it is not very effective for large groups (30+) of volunteers. We hope to have the funding to be able to fly out groups of about 50 volunteers.
 While staying in New Orleans, CSNO has stayed at two different places. Our first choice to stay is Camp Hope. Camp Hope is a well established volunteer camp that is set up to hold large numbers of volunteers. The cost of Camp Hope is $25 per person per night and includes showers, bunks, and all meals. The other place we have stayed is a house in Uptown. The landlords have experience renting out the place to volunteers. The house is ideal for about 15-20 volunteers, but since our goal is to have 50 volunteers, it does not meet our needs.
o Another method that we have been using and plan on continuing to use is associated with our recruiting efforts. Recruiting college students has been one of the easier tasks associated with CSNO. Our most powerful strategy is giving short information speeches at other student organization meetings. For our January trip, we already have a waiting list of potential volunteers.

In total:
o 6 nawleanteer brigades
o 102 Nawleanteers
o 12 days working with the St. Bernard Project with a total of 83 Nawleanteers
o 4 days working at America’s Second Harvest with a total of 62 Nawleanteers
o 3 days work with Animal Rescue New Orleans with a total of 41 Nawleanteers
o 1 day work with St. Marks Community Center with 13 Nawleanteers

how you can get involved:

Others can donate by visiting: http://ihcenter.org/groups/csno.html or

Start a volunteer effort in your own community. Contact Stephanie Buchanan or Adam Kronenberg for start up instructions [personal information removed by DoSomething.org administrator]