Benjamin Banneker high school students fundraise and gut homes for Katrina victims
When high school English teacher Terry Samuel returned to New York from a trip to New Orleans, she told the assistant principal of Benjamin Banneker Academy for Community Development she wanted her students to learn about volunteerism. As an ACORN volunteer, Samuels had helped gut a home damaged during Hurricane Katrina.
New Orleans was no longer in the news, Samuels said, but it needs to be. "New Orleans is close to home and not close to home at the same time," Samuels said. Eighty-five percent of Banneker’s students are African-American, so they strongly identify with the residents of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, which was devastated during the storm.
So for Black History Month, her students pledged to raise and donate $5,000 to New Orleans ACORN's organizing.
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