Lizzie Paulsen, a 21-year-old Los Altos resident and student at UC Santa Cruz, and fellow resident Stephanie Chan of UC Riverside

spent their spring break in New Orleans along with thousands of other college students helping with clean-up from Hurricane Katrina. “We gutted homes in the Lower Ninth Ward, worked on a women’s shelter and cleared out a flooded elementary school,” Paulsen said. They stayed in a shelter with the housing group Common Ground. “We were encouraged to share our stories on return in order to let people know the ongoing need for help,” Paulsen said.