On April 22, 2007, 500 wheelchairs rolled across the San Diego Jewish Academy’s campus. That day, 300 Jewish teens from across San Diego got down on their hands and knees, wrestling with wrenches and screws to build 500 wheelchairs made of lawn chairs and bike tires, which were then shipped to disabled citizens in Tijuana, Mexico, and surrounding communities. Through our hard work, the priceless gift of mobility was given to people who had been living on the ground with rats or stuck in a bed, having the joys of life robbed from them.

After traveling to Louisiana during spring break, I not only have a new perspective on life, but on the roles people can play. Driving through the now abandoned ghost-town of New Orleans, I observed an overwhelming amount of boarded windows and blue tarps everywhere. In some of the more affected areas like Lakeview, walls and roofs are missing on house after house on each street. One might guess an atomic bomb was dropped. Huge piles of debris clutter the lawns of what once were nice middle-class houses.

For so many Katrina survivors, life after the storm meant adjusting to a new reality. But for Tulane grad Colie Edison, it meant a total reality check—as one of The Real World 's seven strangers.

“According to what a poor person is lacking, you are commanded to give to him or her.”  
- Mishneh Torah, Gifts to the Poor 7:3