At 5:00 a.m. on December 3, 2006, 50 members of the Knox community—48 students and 2 faculty/staff members—will load onto seven buses heading to New Orleans. These 50 individuals will spend two weeks in New Orleans helping with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. The group, many of whom spent their 2006 spring break helping clean-up in New Orleans and Mississippi, will work with the organization Hands On in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward. Twelve individuals will record their experiences and reflections on Web logs, or blogs, at http://blog.knox.edu/NOLA, where family, friends and anyone from the Knox community can post comments.

Just days ago, many of these students could be found lounging in fuzzy pink slippers, hovering over a text book, meeting a study group at a favorite coffee shop, or studying for fall term finals. But after a 15 hour road trip, the group will spend much of their winter break gutting ruined homes and sleeping in temporary Salvation Army quarters.

Help is hard to find in New Orleans. More than a year after Hurricane Katrina, rebuilding remains a piecemeal project, being kept alive by volunteers, churches and community organizations. With so many of New Orleans' homes flooded, there is a seemingly insatiable demand for volunteers to remove rotting wood and molding sheetrock, buckled walls and floors.

Reclaiming a few houses at a time in the Lower Ninth Ward, the Knox students' efforts are by no means small. Gutting houses is hard work. Ruined sheetrock, paneling, appliances, furniture and any left over personal belongings are dragged out to the trash. Drywall and insulation are torn out of the walls, the floors pulled up to the sub floor, and, in some cases where the water level was high, the ceilings ripped down. Once this process is complete, the home is ready for the painstaking task of removing the mold. Walls are scrubbed with wire brushes, and the remaining dust is vacuumed. Then the volunteers clean the interior with Efficient Microbes—an anti-fungal solution—before the interior is painted with a heavy-duty primer to reduce moisture and prevent mold re-growth.

The Knox College students are working with the Hands On Network, a not-for-profit group that organizes relief efforts in the areas affected by the hurricane. It has fed and housed more than 1,000 volunteers who work at animal shelters and parks, remove debris from streets, empty damaged homes, remove trees and repair roofs—just a few of the ongoing chores.

The recovery and clean up of New Orleans is going to take many years. Through the selflessness in helping others, these Knox College students are turning disaster relief into a way of life.

Founded in 1837, Knox is a national liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with students from 46 states and 46 nations. Knox's 'Old Main' is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.