By Jessica Stark
Gargoyle staff reporter
Posted Friday, Feb. 24, 2006, The OG, news

This week during Agora Days you might have noticed a few students you weren't expecting to see around school.

That's because the Katrina relief trip to East Biloxi, Miss., organized by sophomore Shara Esbenshade was canceled due to a lack of adult chaperones.

“We had a lot of people who said they might go, but no one really came through for us,” senior Matt Freeman commented.

Freeman was one of the few students who would have been eligible to go, despite the age limitation imposed, and the only senior who had signed up for it.

The trip would have been an alternative for students who didn't get to participate in the annual Habitat for Humanity trip to the Mississippi Delta. Eighteen students and their four faculty chaperones, led by history teacher Bill Sutton, spent Agora Days in Clarksdale, Miss., volunteering with the local Habitat chapter.

Despite this setback, Esbenshade isn't giving up. Soon she's going to start planning a similar trip for this summer, which she hopes will take place shortly after school ends.

So for all the students who didn't get into Habitat, there's still a chance that you could get to do some hands-on activist work this year.

As Esbenshade put it, “The object was to do some good down there and it didn't work out this time, which was a huge disappointment, but I still want to try it, especially after all the time I spent preparing for it.”