Michael Day

So first, a quick overview of everything: I’m Mike Day, WPI Class of 2015. I heard about this trip during the first meeting of WPI Habitat for Humanity, and was immediately interested. We’re here helping in the lower 9th ward, at a place called The Village.

This is The Village

The Village is run by Mack.

So that’s the trip so far. But I’d like to take a little time here and take a step back to look at the larger picture.

We live in a world that is rocked by natural disasters on the scale of Hurricane Katrina every few years. In the 6 years since Katrina we have experienced the Indonesian Tsunami, Haitian Earthquake, and Japanese Earthquake, all of which have caused devastation on scales that defy human comprehension. As Stalin so succinctly put it, “The death of one man is a tragedy: the death of a million men is a statistic”. How can we as a people better ourselves if we forget the plight of millions after mere months?


Survivors deal with a variety of problems, even from those who try to help. Professional companies who work exclusively in providing services to disaster areas make profits off the people, technically providing aid while statistically hurting the populace by not involving them and getting them to stand back up on their own.


Millions of people donate to not profits that claim to be using the money in direct aid. What we forget is that ‘Non-Profit’ is a classification of companies the government deems worthy of corporate tax exemptions, and their motives and actions can be far from sincere. It is widely accepted that under half of the money donated to relief efforts for disasters actually ends up helping in any way at all.


So what does this leave for those who help? The truly selfless souls who donate time, money, and effort (no matter how big or small their contribution); are they all bound like King Sisyphus to an endless struggle. Must we provide aid to each disaster until the next one sends our efforts hurtling downwards to the bottom of the hill?

For more information about the Lower Ninth Ward Village please visit their website here and if you would like to make a donation, you can do that here.