Portledge Students Help to Rebuild New Orleans

In March, eight courageous students from the Portledge School in Locust Valley flew down to New Orleans, LA, to participate in a variety of service projects that would provide better living conditions for victims of Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill.

Emma Chernoff, Zach Cooper-Vastola, Lisa Dourmashkin, Alexa Lodenquai, Sam Melman, Laura Phillips, Sarah Sackman and Harrison Tanchuck attended the week-long trip as members of the Portledge School’s Community Service Club.

“I thought it was profoundly different from New York,” said Melman, a Junior, upon arriving in the humid, southern state. “The first thing I noticed was how communal it was, with everyone saying, ‘Hi’ to one another.”

The students began their service by planting sticks in the mud for two hours (to encourage bird migration) and cleaning the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, where hazardous remnants were found.

“We saw chunks of tar left over from the oil spill,” said Junior Cooper-Vastola.

After several days of touring the city, thoroughly absorbing the culture - such as trying and enjoying the crawfish - and taking part in other activities, it was time for the power tools.

“When we were building houses, we got split into two groups. First, we sanded and painted since they were covered in mud,” said Cooper-Vastola of the construction they did for the St. Bernard Project. By the end of their labor, the students had built a house ready for occupancy.

“I felt very accomplished after seeing the transformed house,” he continued. “It was a pretty incredible and eye-opening thing.”

One student, Sarah Sackman, a Sophomore, has a family with a background in construction. However, she was still a bit skeptical as to how she and her classmates were going to accomplish the seemingly-large task at hand.

“I picked up a tool and was like, ‘How do i use this?’ We’re teenagers! How are we supposed to build a house?” she said. “It was easy, actually. We learned how to put up sheet rock, and hold up dry wall.”

Following the completion of the project, Sackman was truly amazed with her newfound talents.

“You’d think it’d be so much harder,” she said. “I would never have imagined I was capable of doing something of that magnitude.”

The crew returned home to New York with a plentiful amount of photographs and happy memories.

“There was one lady I will never forget,” said Junior Lodenquai. 

On a trip to the flea market, she and Sackman wanted to purchase necklaces. The seller asked the girls for $20 each. After both girls paid, she inquired about their reason for being in New Orleans.

“When we told her we were there to build houses, the woman gave back one of the 20s,” she said.

Lodenquai continued that neither she or her classmates had realized how much the trip would impact them.

“We fell in love with the city,” said Sarah. “It really felt like I was making a difference. We can’t wait to go back and do more.”