While some students tanned themselves in a tropical locale this spring break, others chose to spend their vacation rebuilding damage done by Hurricane Katrina.

Approximately 600 students from 81 universities across the country travelled to New Orleans March 15-20 to aid victims of the tragedy. About 50 Binghamton University students took part in the effort — the most from any one school.

The trip was sponsored by Opportunity Rocks, a national student activist group dedicated to fighting poverty within the United States, and the New Orleans-area branch of Habitat for Humanity.

While the majority of students there had received funding through their respective schools, the BU students who participated paid their own way down and back.

“It was really surprising to see the amount of people that came out because it wasn’t funded and the school wasn’t funded and it all came out of our pocket, so it was just really nice to see how many students from BU are supporting,” said Stephanie Rivera, a senior English and sociology major.

According to Samantha Traub, a junior sociology and Caribbean studies major, the trip was an eye opener for many of the students, exposing them for the first time to the real problems facing the area.

“People sleep in sleeping bags in one arena that supposedly held 4,000 victims, and we also stayed in that arena,” Traub said.

Many of the victims who were displaced from their homes by the disaster still do not have places to go. According to Traub and Rivera, a large problem in the area is the widely held negative attitude toward the displaced victims.

“That is why you got riots. When the flood happened, people were running and trying to get out of there, but other neighborhoods locked their doors and police were making sure those [displaced] people would not get into their homes,” Traud said. “They were saying they don’t want people to kill them or rob them … this was the big misconception about the displaced people stuck there.”

Another major problem seen by the student volunteers is the upcoming election.

“One of the problems was the actual votes,” Traub said. “They are going to have an election, but 75 percent of the population in New Orleans relocated, and the government is not making any efforts to get those people to go.”

Traub added that many of the relocated citizens were black and of lower socioeconomic standing, which has turned the election into a racial issue in the city.

“They are not going to stop the election and no one really knows what is going on because all they are thinking about is the hurricane,” Traub said.

While there, the students worked on voter registration drives to register the residents still located in the city, and to mail absentee ballots to those that have temporarily relocated, in an attempt to ensure that every citizen maintains the right to vote.

After their spring break experience, Rivera and Traub are both planning on continuing their work in New Orleans.

“I’d love to go back down there and help if I could. We are actually going to look into and see what we can do maybe for the Easter break and summer,” Rivera said.