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Alternative Spring Break Trips have become an institution at 51�Թ���. 

Each year, groups of students and their chaperones travel to places where their volunteer efforts can make a real difference. The trips are organized through the Martin Richard Institute for Social Justice (MRISJ).

Four such trips were recently offered: to New Orleans’ Ninth Ward; to the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth & Reconciliation in Alabama; working with the AllPeopleBeHappy program in Williamson, West Virginia; and a local option with service opportunities at BSU’s food pantry and the Coalition for Social Justice, and a visit to the Massachusetts State House.

Jill Beckwith, executive director of the MRISJ, said Alternative Spring Break Trips include two undergraduate students serving as team leaders, six undergraduate student participants, and two learning partners, composed of BSU faculty or staff members.

Having featured the Selma trip in a story last year, we thought we’d check in this year with the group that traveled to New Orleans. Louisiana has been the destination for many types of service trips from BSU since Hurricane Katrina devasted the city in August 2005.

BSU students this year once again descended on the Ninth Ward, which was heavily damaged by the great storm when the levy protecting the area let go. The racial justice calculus was striking: 51 percent of the victims were Black versus the 42 percent who were white. Adding to the inequity were numbers like this: In Orleans Parish, the mortality rate among blacks was 1.7 to 4 times higher than that among whites. ()

Over the two decades since Katrina, some organizations have expanded their purview, to move beyond rebuilding the city. BSU’s Alternative Spring Break program is no exception. The focus of this year’s trip to the Big Easy was the environment, the planting of trees and managing ecosystems. The destination was the Ninth Ward, which is one of the poorest areas in New Orleans, where more than 34 percent of residents live below the poverty line.

What does planting trees and worrying about ecosystems have to do with racial justice and equity? New Orleans lost 200,000 trees to the winds and rains of Katrina. As one put it: “That lack of canopy is visible in the Lower Ninth Ward, a majority Black neighborhood and one of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina.” The report goes on to list the ways planting interventions can help: “Trees are proven to reduce heat in cities, take up stormwater when it rains and improve air quality – all important needs in New Orleans as climate change intensifies storms and raises temperatures.

The Biden administration had established a $75 million tree-planting program as part of its , which aimed to direct more resources to “disadvantaged communities.” Programs stemming from that initiative in New Orleans and around the country were ended by the Trump administration. In a letter terminating the contract, the U.S. Forest Service stated the program, “no longer aligns with agency priorities regarding diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Hence, BSU’s alternative spring break trip came at the right time.

Gwen Gacek, ’27, of Chicago, was one of the team leaders for the New Orleans trip.

“Our focus within this experience was to provide information on environmental justice, racial justice and environmental issues,” said the secondary education and English major, who is also carrying a minor in social justice.

“Our work was primarily planting cypress and bear root trees to help cultivate a natural ecosystem and protective barrier against natural disaster such as hurricanes and tropical storms.”

We decided to learn a bit more about her time in Louisiana.

Can you tell us in more detail the work that you and your peers did?

We were in the Lower Ninth Ward within the New Orleans area. We stayed on site with a group called Common Ground Relief. CGR is a nonprofit organization that helps with conservation of wetlands and coastal areas within the Southeast area of Louisiana. They started right as Hurricane Katrina hit, helping folks with lower incomes find food, shelter and emergency aid. They’ve shifted their focus now to coastal restoration, as they are planting trees within the devastated areas of the bayou. We worked specifically in an area called Bayou Bienvenue. The first day of planting was on the east side, then the rest was on the west side. We primarily were planting trees out on the bayou and wetlands. This meant driving to the drop site, where we would then take a boat to the actual planting sites. These sites are protected areas, as the trees we plant cannot be taken down, because they are vital to the restoration of the bayou. We primarily worked with cypress trees, as they help with the ecosystems of the wetlands.

How many days did you spend on site volunteering?

We stayed there from March 8-15. Approximately four days in a row we did most of the planting. One day was for nursery work, which consisted of helping clean up the grounds and potting the trees.

What drew you to this trip and to service in general?

I was interested in this specific experience because it focused on planting and environmental justice. I have a passion for working with plants. I also wanted to go somewhere I haven’t visited before. New Orleans especially caught my interest because of its culture of jazz music and vibrant nightlife.

Finally, what is your main takeaway from the experience?

It’s how clear the many disparities are, even 20 years after Hurricane Katrina. In the Lower Ninth Ward, a predominately black neighborhood, there are houses that are still dilapidated, people waiting for houses to be built or fixed and areas that look like they haven’t recovered from the disaster. Compare that with the Royal Street area, a mostly white neighborhood, which has mansions and homes that are hundreds of years old that have been renovated. One house where we were serving even had a GoFundMe account seeking donations, because even though it looks “new,” it still needs a proper roof and plumbing inside. This segregation between black and white people is an inherently socio-economic issue, which opened my eyes as I came back and really took a hard look at neighborhoods and what groups are given “equal opportunity.” 

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