Spring Break, Week 4

The fourth week of Spring Break has come and gone. As with each of the other weeks, it was a good week of service with diverse projects ranging from surveying East Biloxi to determine the needs of residents, to demolding, to working on some of the houses we're building, to participating in a community cleanup in Moss Point.

This week was a smaller week, with about 50 Spring Breakers from:

• Unversity of California - Riverside
• Harvard University
• SUNY Albany (a Jewish Funds for Justice group)
• Colorado University, Boulder

For those who opted into the Service Learning package, the panel discussion with members of the Steps Coalition was pretty lively. The panel had representatives from the Fair Housing Coalition, MIRA (Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance), LIFE (Living Independently For Everyone), and NAVASA (National Alliance of Vietnamese American Service Agencies). The focus of the discussion was grassroots community organizing in the wake of Katrina. Each of these organizations talked about the challenge of creating an equitable recovery for all.

We thank all the Spring Breakers who came down this year to Biloxi. We're still compiling the impact y'all had over the course of the month. We'll post that as soon as it's ready.