December 14, 2007

It's safe to say most college students go home for the holidays to enjoy their time off, but for some University of Virginia students they're migrating south

Six UVa students and two construction professionals will pack up a van and head to Pearlington, Mississippi for the next several weeks.

It has taken over 25 trips to Pearlington for the Building Goodness Foundation to help this Katrina struck town to re-build their life.

“A group of people from Charlottesville were actually the first ones down there and found out what this town really wanted most and immediately were small shelters,” said Jack Higgins, Program Coordinator for Building Goodness Foundation.

After building 140 12 X 16 foot shelters over the past two years, they're now working on a community center. This time some UVa undergrads are pitching in.

“I found out about the trip in an email and it seems like a really good idea. It's an awesome experience to work with some other people and just help out a community that really needs a lot of help right now,” Neil Choudhary, a student volunteer.

Physical labor is what this town needs most. The community center broke ground back in October after years of planning. Now, these volunteers are going to help move construction along.

“We asked the town leaders at that time what can we build to help you folks and they took us to this lot across the street from where we were working and they said this is what's left of the community center and it was just a slab in the ground and some pipes and wires sticking up and they said we need a new community center,” said Howard Pape, Vice President of Building Goodness Foundation.

This group’s first trip to Pearlington was just weeks after Hurricane Katrina destroyed their town. At that time they built shelters.