Hope for Stanley March Trip Coming Up

The Hope for Stanley Foundation will conduct its 18th volunteer trip to New Orleans from March 10 - 13 when 52 volunteers from across the country will come together to do rebuild work in New Orleans. Twenty-six students and friends from the University of Central Florida’s DeVos Sport Business Management program will be joined by 16 students from the University at Buffalo, and 10 students from the University of Vermont.

Volunteers will begin their trip with a tour of the Lower Ninth Ward. The tour will be led by Dr. Richard Lapchick of the University of Central Florida, often described as the “racial conscience of sport,” and named “One of the 100 Most Powerful People in Sport.” Students will meet Lower Ninth resident Stanley Stewart, whose home was destroyed by the Hurricane Katrina floodwaters. Stewart and his family were able to move back into their home two years after the storm with the help of the Hope for Stanley Foundation, which is named after Stewart.

Volunteers will spend their first two days renovating a baseball field with the New Orleans Recreational Department at Joe Brown Park in New Orleans East. The park is getting ready to begin little league play and will take another step in returning to its pre-Katrina condition when the volunteers help restore its baseball field.

Another two days will be spent working in the Lower Ninth Ward with Historic Green, a project concentrated on “green” construction and deconstruction. Volunteers will be involved with Historic Green’s vision of making the Lower Ninth Ward the nation’s first carbon-neutral community. The work will encompass restoring homes, playgrounds, gardens, and wetlands.

The Hope for Stanley Foundation has taken volunteer trips to New Orleans since December 2006, and has been recognized by the New Orleans City Council as the out-of-state group with the most volunteer trips to the city. To date, 550 volunteers have passed through the Hope for Stanley Foundation to work in different areas of the city with a number of different agencies serving New Orleans and its surrounding communities. Another group of 15 students from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY is expected to arrive in early April.