Outreach Tulane

Hey all!

I've been so swamped with first week work, that it's been a little hard trying to find time to update, but here goes. I am loving all of my classes so far; they're all pretty interesting. And! Not having Friday classes is probably one of the best life decisions I have ever made.

One of the things that I have been super busy with for the past few weeks has been helping with Outreach Tulane. For those of you who don't know, Outreach Tulane is the big campus-wide community service day that CACTUS (the Community Action Council of Tulane University Students) and the Center for Public Service (and various other organizations on campus) put on every year the Saturday after move-in. Basically, it's about a thousand volunteers who help out at various sites around the city. Now can you see why I haven't had time to update?

The day turned out really great, actually. We had a great turnout (even though everyone had to be unreasonably early for college students on a Saturday), and we did some great work in the community. One great (Project Greenlight) installed energy efficient lightbulbs in houses. One group cleaned up cemetaries (Save our Cemetaries).

My group actually got to help out with the Community Health Fair and Play Day by playing with kids whose parents came to get health screenings from the Tulane community health bus. This was all part of a bigger day that was the 4th Commemoration of Hurricane Katrina, and it was great to see Tulane students be able to be part of the New Orleans community. Actually, it was just great to see the community come together as a whole to commemorate the 4th anniversary, to mourn the losses, and to celebrate what has been regained.

Anyways, I don't have pictures from the day of yet (yeah... sorry... I suck), but I promise pictures as the semester progresses!