Thirty University of South Carolina undergraduate students are traveling to South Louisiana to spend their fall break volunteering with the nonprofit St. Bernard Project in efforts to rebuild homes in areas that were highly affected by the August floods.
USC students will volunteer with the St. Bernard Project all day on Friday and Saturday, and will be accommodated at the Judson Baptist Retreat Center in St. Francisville, Louisiana. The group departed from the Horseshoe early Thursday morning.
This trip was coordinated by USC's Leadership and Service Center as an Alternative Break trip.
Luis Sierra, a leadership coach at the Leadership and Service Center and a service ally on the trip, said that the flood dumped "an equivalent of 7.1 trillion gallons of water" on Louisiana, which is triple the amount of rain that devastated the state during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
"Thousands of families are still displaced," Sierra said — which is why USC students will be focused on rebuilding homes.
Last October, LSU sent money to South Carolina when parts of the state were devastated by record floods. Although the Leadership and Service Center plans service trips every year, Sierra said, "we are more than glad to be able to lend a hand as Carolinians, in the same way LSU extended its hand to us during our time of need last October."
According to Sierra, the Leadership and Service Center is "paying close attention to the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew" in regard to planning the next Alternative Break trip in order to "identify and plan meaningful ways in which our students can be of assistance in some of the affected areas."
The group will be sharing its volunteer experiences this weekend via social media using the hashtag #UofSCAltBreak.