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Saturday, December 31, 2005

USC Students Going To N.O. To Help Katrina Victims

Jewish Group Joins Rebuilding Efforts


(CBS)
LOS ANGELES A group of USC students will spend the first week of the new year in New Orleans helping victims of Hurricane Katrina, a campus rabbi said.

The group, organized by Chabad on Campus, will join about 100 other students from Harvard, Columbia and other colleges to rebuild some of the areas hardest hit by Katrina four months ago, said Rabbi Dov Wagner, the director of the campus' Chabad Jewish Student Center.

Another group went on a similar rebuilding mission Dec. 18 through Dec. 24.

The students will help local residents make their homes livable again by removing mold infested debris and ruined carpets and walls and assist the national charitable organization Habitat for Humanity in their rebuilding efforts.

They will also help repair damaged public school buildings, work with the Jewish Federation to help other charitable organizations get their facilities back in order, and help the burial society remove and bury thousands of Jewish holy books scattered throughout the city and destroyed by the hurricane.

Chabad-Lubavitch will provide the students with room and board and help with other expenses, but the volunteers will pay for their own transportation to New Orleans, said Wagner.

(© 2005 CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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