Andy Livingston was examining his spring break options early this year. Some of his buddies were headed to Los Angeles for a little sun and a little sand, while others were going to Las Vegas for a little, well, what happens in Vegas …

He chose neither.

Photo by Tom Campbell

Purdue students Brittany Moore (left) and Lisa Hepworth (right) work shoulder-to-shoulder with Alcorn State University student Kanika Welch to help clean up the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Livingston, a Purdue junior in horticulture and landscape architecture, chose to ride 800 miles in a van to Ocean Springs, Miss., with a group of students he had never met. He stayed in a tent on the parking lot at the St. Paul Methodist Church and had to stand in line to shower or eat.

He spent each day of spring break up to his elbows in the refuse of Hurricane Katrina, coated in dust and dirt. And the only souvenir he brought back from his trip was an upper respiratory infection from the constant exposure to the mold spores that Katrina left as the gift that keeps on giving.

In other words, Livingston had the time of his life.

He worked hand-in-hammer with a similarly motivated group of students from Alcorn State University in Mississippi, which has its campus about 175 miles north of New Orleans. The three dozen students spent the first two days gutting a church that had been pretty much untouched since Hurricane Katrina stirred things up on Aug. 29.

“They told us it would be a four-day job,” Livingston says. “But we got it done in just two. It was a great team effort.

“Just seeing the look on the preacher’s face when we got done, that made it all worth it for me. He couldn’t thank us enough for what we were able to do.”

Pam Morris and Mark Russell organized the trip as part of the curriculum for YDAE 491 (Serving Communities – Principles, Process and Practices).

“The goal was to learn to accept and work equally with people of different cultures,” says Russell, a professor of animal sciences. “The more our students can learn to deal with people who are different from themselves will only help make them more successful in the future.”

Morris, assistant dean of diversity programs in the College of Agriculture, saw it as something more.

“This was a total cultural immersion experience, not only for our students, but for the Alcorn students, too,” she says. “We put people from each school on different teams. And each day, you could see barriers being broken down between students as they worked together. For me, it was a dream come true.

“Everybody came down here as a volunteer. But I think we all came away as friends.”

Contact Morris at pmorris@purdue.edu