Over Winter Break over 550 students from 28 law schools* and organizations worked through SHN in Mississippi and Louisiana. Wow. This means to date SHN has brought more than 3500 students to the region. Again, WOW.

Thanks so much to the students and trip-planners who made it happen to get down here and thanks to the National Advisory Board members and Lauren Bartlett who ran interference on the ground during these weeks as well as everyone who helped me do outreach and placements. Thanks, of course, also to our community partners who hosted students and to everyone who took time to enrich our experiences by coming to talk to us at orientations.

Thanks also to everyone who participated in our Second Annual National Leadership Meeting last weekend. It is thrilling to meet folks who want to be involved in this work-- and on a personal level, I cannot recommend taking on a leadership role in SHN strongly enough. There is room for everyone-- and involvement can range from applying for the National Advisory Board (details coming soon) to contacting organizations for trips to speaking up on conference calls. SHN attracts a strong community of admirable, interesting and fun people who are good to know.

Contrary to what we might have feared, the numbers of student volunteers over this period was as high as ever. This means SHN students understand that while the exact needs on the ground have shifted in the past 2.5 years... the need is still huge. Together we continue to make a significant impact while showing the people both in the region and across the country that while many may have "Katrina Fatigue"-- the law students of SHN don't!

If you're planning a Spring Break Trip, please follow the steps below. The process will be slightly different from past trips, and the deadlines are earlier, as more advanced notice is across the board what the most students and community partners ask us to work on. The nature of the work demands flexibility, but the sooner I have all of the information for a given week of trips, the sooner I can being placing students.

To plan a Spring Break Trip in Feb/March/April of 2008:

1. Read the rewritten trip-planning handbook (in the Library section of the website).
2. As soon as you know which week you will be coming, email shntrips@gmail.com. As soon as you have a ballpark idea of how many people will be coming, email that to shntrips@gmail.com as well. This way, also, if there is some email snafu, I will know to follow-up with you about your trip! I will also have a list of trip-planners to let know about projects as they develop and other helpful tidbits.
3. Submit student information in the spreadsheet (found (in the Library section of the website) no later than the deadlines below (one month before the trip.) Title it SCHOOL WEEK NUMBER. So, since the University of Wisconsin will be coming the week of March 17-- I would submit my spreadsheet by Feb. 17 and title it "UWisconsin Week 4." If your break fall outside of these dates, let us know as soon as possible-- we can likely accommodate you with some pre-planning.

Week 1: February 25-29 Deadline to Submit Student Information: January 27
Week 2: March 3-7 Deadline to Submit Student Information: February 3
Week 3: March 10-14 Deadline to Submit Student Information: February 10
Week 4: March 17-21 Deadline to Submit Student Information: February 17
Week 5: March 24-28 Deadline to Submit Student Information: February 24

4. A waiver form is also attached, each student will need to sign and turn this into SHN before they can begin working at an SHN placement. Keep this in mind, it may be easier to get them signed as people sign up for the trip.
5. Make sure everyone in your group is in town to attend Orientation, which will be held each Sunday night at 6:30pm. In New Orleans, this will take place at Tulane Law School, in Mississippi, the site is yet to be determined. Also make sure everyone will be in town for the entire work week. Because many placements involve a significant investment in training, less than a full week of work isn't often worth the training time. Therefore, it is very difficult to place people who come for less than a week and SHN volunteers are required to commit to the full week.
6. After your week of volunteering, everyone who participated will receive an evaluation. Fill that out and send it back in-- and your commitment is complete!

This is included in the handbook now, but bears repeating:

Many students and schools have existing relationships with organizations or may be tempted to "go around" Student Hurricane Network. There are four main reasons why this is actually very destructive during school break periods.

1. Placements through SHN takes the burden off busy attorneys and community advocates. They have so much to do, keeping track of who is coming when and where they should stay and all the logistics that SHN is very good at is a waste of their time and resources.
2. SHN has a macro view of the volunteer situation in the area over a given period. We have relationships with so many organizations that we can ensure volunteers are spread throughout the region where they are needed-it is impossible for someone planning a trip remotely and/or from scratch to do this. We also know about cool stuff you might otherwise never have found out about.
3. Some placements conflict with one another. We place students at organizations that may be on opposite sides of litigation. However, because of the aforementioned macro view, we can make sure students from the same school are not placed in situations that create conflicts.
4. It is much, much, much more work for a school to be doing their own thing and maybe or maybe not letting us know what is going on. Something invariably falls through the cracks, too many or too few students are sent to placements and again a burden is put on the organizations we are trying to help.

For the reasons above, we believe that groups that truly only want to help and to do so in the way most helpful to those they are trying to help-will plan their trip through SHN. Again, we will work to accommodate requests to the extent that they are feasible.

Again, thanks so much to everyone. This was a great Winter Trips season, Spring Trips will be awesome, too.

Happy planning!

Sarah

Sarah Erlinder
SHN National Advisory Board
University of Wisconsin


*These schools included: Illinois, Indiana, Oregon, Washburn, Mizzou, Cardozo, Fordham, Brooklyn, Wisconsin, Chicago-Kent, DePaul, Tulane, Texas, Rocky Mountain BLSA, Oklahoma, SMU, John Marshall, Maryland, Baltimore, American, Minnesota, Buffalo, Colorado, Penn State-Dickinson, Richmond, Touro, Thomas M. Cooley, George Washington.