Students lend a helping hand to Hurricane Katrina victim

NEW ORLEANS, page 1 broken, and I try to be happy. But sometimes, there’s moments I just can’t take it anymore,” Guerra said.

The devastation from the 2005 storm remains in many sections of Louisiana. Street numbers line the curbs yet there are no houses to claim them. The stench of mold, mildew and stagnant water still linger through the air. Even on the sunniest day, no squirrels scurrying, birds chirping or children laughing can be heard.

However on Jan. 8, the silence was broken with the whack of a hammer and the screech of a saw.

With open arms, St. Bernard’s Parish, roughly 45-minutes out- side of New Orleans, welcomed six Cabrini students and other volunteers. Ashley Cook, Kasey Minnick, Megan Pellegrino, Jillian Smith, Jackie Turchi and Grayce Turnbach participated in Warren County, NJ’s Habitat for Humanity’s youth project where they helped rebuild what Katrina had destroyed.

“I knew day one was going to be tough,” Grayce Turnbach, junior english and Communications major, said. “But I came here to help this women who had lost everything.”

On their first day of work, WCHFH and the six Cabrini students pulled up to 2312 Gina Drive not knowing what to expect.

Moments later, the group was met by Guerra, or “Miss Edna” as they called her, where the emotional side of the storm sunk in.

For the next four days, the volunteers put all their sweat, blood and tears into moving Miss Edna from her cramped FEMA trailer into a beautiful new house she would soon be able to call home.

“I just wanna stop, my wrists hurt so bad, but I can’t,” said a WCHFH volunteer, Shamera Washington, after hammering a nail into the floorboard. “I know if I stop, Miss Edna will be the one suffering. I have to help her, I can’t just give up.”

When neighbors saw Habitat for Humanity volunteers begin-