Hammer time

While most students plan on spending the last week of February on the slopes, in the sun or on the couch, Miranda McQuade, Aaron Vomberg, Jessica Roy and Shannon McNally are turning their winter break into a winter build.

The four students are part of a Dalhousie contingent heading to New Orleans to work at a building site for Habitat for Humanity. This is the second such trip for DalHabitat, a campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Last year, the group spent its break in Theodore in Mobile County, Alabama, helping to build houses for people in need.

For Ms. McQuade and Mr. Vomberg, it was this experience that drove their decision to return to the southern United States. Last year the two “fell in love” with the spirit and natural beauty of the South. They also had the “humbling and humanizing experience” of visiting New Orleans, where they were able to see first-hand the extent of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Film screening The Dalhousie Art Gallery is showing all four hours of Spike Lee's Hurricane Katrina documentary When The Levees Broke. The screening takes place Tuesday, Feb. 26, 5 to 9 p.m. at the gallery, located in the Dalhousie Arts Centre. According to Variety, the documentary is "charged with profound sorrow, galvanizing outrage and defiant resolve."

Both Ms. McQuade, a political science and history major, and Mr. Vomberg, a community design student, are interested in housing issues. The two emphasized the problem of substandard housing, and highlighted the disparity between the wealth of the North and the poverty of the Southern states.

“It’s quite fascinating to think we drove two days and arrived in a totally different world,” says Mr. Vomberg.

The Dal group is fundraising its way to New Orleans, and will travel via chartered bus. Upon arrival, they will spend their days roofing, painting and drywalling. The site will likely consist of 20 to 30 houses in varying stages of construction. The students will have the rewarding experience of building with the soon-to-be home owners, who must commit 500 hours of work to their new homes.

Although the students will spend their days working, they are hoping to mix building with pleasure. They will have their evenings free to soak in the rich southern sights and sounds.

“I’m not leaving until I hear live music,” says Ms. McQuade.

Jessica Wishart is a fourth-year student in International Development Studies.