Max and Izzie Alley lug lawn equipment from one site to another.

New Orleans Visitors Mix Tourism with Volunteerism
Kids Benefit from Spending Vacation Time Helping Others

Kudos to partner agency ‘Beacon of Hope’ for a great job of co-branding.  The United Way logo is prominently featured in a companion photo to a CNN online story as featured below.

Since Katrina, people from all over the world continue to come to New Orleans to donate their time and efforts to help in the rebuilding process.  Thanks to people like Hollywood Celebrity Brad Pitt, who has focused his publicized efforts in the devastated Lower Ninth Ward, Americans are still aware of the work that needs to be done in New Orleans.

Thankfully for the Spring Breakers and Tourists, New Orleans is a great place to combine a volunteer effort with some sightseeing.

The Alleys and Goldsmiths, a family from suburban New York, recently volunteered with Beacon Hope, a United Way agency, for a week of volunteering.

"We know from stress, but not this kind of stress," said Judy Goldsmith, who got the idea to bring her family here when she met a family who had spent time volunteering in New Orleans as part of a Bar Mitzvah celebration. Through them, she contacted the Beacon of Hope Resource Center (http://www.lakewoodbeacon.org/), which is one of the few volunteer organizations that can arrange projects suitable for families with young kids.

The family worked on a home in middle-class Lakeview, less than a mile from the 17th Street Canal levee break, where the houses are in various stages of construction. Some are still boarded up; others are brand new, with flowers planted outside. Fewer than half the houses in the neighborhood are occupied. In order to help get people back into their homes, the Alleys and the Goldsmiths contributed by stacking bricks and clearing debris. It's hot, sweaty work but the Alley kids don't mind.

"You feel good doing this," Izzie Alley said, “Seeing it on TV isn't the same as experiencing it yourself.  And it's been fun."

"You come away with so much more than you give," promises Ted Goldsmith, a retired businessman who had never done anything like this before on vacation.

The kids find it liberating to be focused on something else besides the latest school drama, said Beacon of Hope's Connie Uddo. "They get a week of vacation from themselves." She has had families volunteer to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, reunions and recovery from illness by volunteering in New Orleans.

To learn about more ways to volunteer or donate to the rebuilding efforts in New Orleans, please visit www.unitedwaynola.org.