Service Learning Director Ray O’Connor sent an email about the New Orleans Service Immersion Trip to both high schools this afternoon.

“It’s a really great opportunity for students to help out another community and just give back and rebuild the houses lost during Hurricane Katrina,” junior Grace Apple, who went on a different service trip to New Orleans, said.

The email encouraged students to apply online before the Dec. 18 deadline for the trip, which will take place over Winter Break from Feb. 13 to the 19.

“A lot of our students are interested in exchange and traveling, but there’s something special about connecting with a Sacred Heart school that’s in the U.S.,” School Administrator Devin DeMartini Cooke said. “New Orleans is beautiful and getting to stay at the Duchesne House and being with the nuns is such a powerful experience for our students.”

Students who embark on the service trip will assist in rebuilding the extensive damage done by Hurricane Katrina, even a decade after the natural disaster, according to DeMartini Cooke.

“You’re doing service to an area that still really needs it,” DeMartini Cooke said. “It constantly surprises me how long ago Katrina was, but the work still needs to be done.”

Approximately 20 students will be admitted to the trip, but only seven students have enrolled in the program thus far, according to the email.

“On my trip we got to go and work on a house that hadn’t been touched since Katrina,” Apple said. “It was really powerful because it’s just really amazing that we would provide a home for another family.”