Teens Service Work

My teen son and a group of friends want to drive down for their spring break and do service work. These are a group of college freshman. I am concerned about crime safety ect. I don%26#39;t feel like I am getting the whole story as they told me it would cost $100.00 each for this trip. Any areas they should avoid any advice? I will post again as I get more info. Thanks for any pointers. A mom with another grey hair.

Teens Service Work

I wouldn%26#39;t worry TOO much about safety issues IF the kids are pretty responsible and IF they are going through Habitat, St. Bernard Project, etc. for their efforts.

The vast majority of visitors never run into any safety issues but, of course, crime can happen in any major city and New Orleans certainly has its share.

$100 each sounds pretty cheap to do anything these days, even when splitting gas.

Your son sounds like mine, actually. He%26#39;s a high school senior and really wants to ';see the world'; without knowing all of what%26#39;s out there to greet him!

I commend your son%26#39;s desire to help, too.

Teens Service Work

I have a dear friend (college counselor) who oversees a college group for their ASB (Alternative Spring Break). This will be her 3rd year to travel with a college group to do volunteer work in New Orleans.

That said...they have fundraisers to help fund their upcoming trips. They have set accommodations and set job sites where they know they will be working each day.

As a parent, I would want more ';specifics'; than $100.00 to drive down and work.

I will be taking some young people to do volunteer work in April. I know exactly where we will be working and where we will be staying.

Demand more info.

Thanks for posting the info about your friend. I finally tracked down a phone number of a very nice woman at my son%26#39;s university who gave me additonal information. Like you mentioned it is Alternative Spring Break. I owe 195.00 due today and there was a meeting that apparently he missed. I have given him the go-ahead but I told him he must go to the next meeting and I want phone numbers, addresses and other students numbers that he will be traveling with. She mentioned the organization Common Ground.

It sounds like a wonderful experience. I wanted to make sure it wasn%26#39;t a group of his frat brothers who decided to take a little road trip. I am already paying for a Formal that they are having in Chicago two weeks after this trip. My son needs this humbling experience, the bank is closed!

Common Ground is a good organization. They do rebuilding work and run a free clinic as well. The organization has had some trouble lately as one of the founders was revealed to be an FBI informant, but they are still a visible force in the rebuilding efforts around town. Here is their web site for more info: http://www.commongroundrelief.org/

While I%26#39;m not a fan of Common Ground, I applaud the kids for coming to help and hope it%26#39;s a great learning experience for them. I%26#39;ve ';strongly suggested'; that my teens help when they visit New Orleans (they live in Florida) and they%26#39;ve learned a lot of life lessons from it.

Thanks so much for all the replies. Chkd with his doc yesterday and his tetanus is still good. They leave on March 14th so will let you know how it goes. Hoping for decent weather. He took a week trip to New York last year for art and we ended up with a huge snow storm. They had to re-route them a different way to drive 17 hours home.

I wanted to thank everyone for replying to my posts. My son had a great time in New Orleans. Twenty four college kids were in his group. The guys did drywall and the girls painted. They had the priveledge of meeting the man who owned the house they were helping to restore. The tour bus driver apparently was a hoot and was the person that taught the kids how to drywall. Thanks again.

Wow. What a great experience. I wish my college freshman had done something charitable.He%26#39;s doing God knows what in Panama City Beach FL, as we speak.

I commend your son for the choice he made.

We have hosted at our church 80 spring breakers this week and over 200 in recent weeks and I can%26#39;t applaud these young adults more. They work hard and have been very dedicated and have worked through our affiliation with Habitat for Humanity.

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