Bay Area Teens Help Rebuild New Orleans

But as an alumnus of the Diller Teen Fellows program, he attended a retreat in February where the current fellows spoke of a trip for which they were raising money. They hoped to visit the New Orleans area to help out for a few days over the Memorial Day weekend.

“I immediately wanted to go,” Riff said.

As a senior counting down the days to graduation, Riff knew that he could easily afford to skip a few days of school. “It was second semester senior year,” he said. “I didn’t have too much else to do.”

Riff was one of 25 Bay Area teens who spent a few days in the New Orleans area. While the trip was spearheaded by the S.F.-based Bureau of Jewish Education and its Bay Area Jewish Service Learning Project Director Jare Akchin, it was a collaborative effort, with groups that included BBYO, the Diller Teens, Tzaddikim of Sonoma County, Congregation Emanu-El, and the East Bay-based Coalition for Jewish Living and Learning(CJLL) all lending their support. A grant from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund subsidized the trip as well.

While Akchin was hired at the BJE specifically to plan service-learning projects for teens and build community in the process, she had been wanting to do something in her native New Orleans. While she had been back since the hurricanes, it was only to visit family, not to help out.

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