I have just returned from my first trip to the Gulf Coast region. I am from the mountains of southwest Virginia and have never personally experienced the effects of a hurricane. I now serve on staff of the Appalachian Center for Community Service at my alma mater, Emory & Henry College. The college has been making an alternative spring break trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast since the spring of 2006. I never made this trip as a student, but I am grateful for the opportunity to have made it as a staff member.\r\n\r\nWe attempted to prepare ourselves for this trip by watching and reflecting on Spike Lee\'s documentary When the Levees Broke. We talked extensively about the human failure and injustice of Hurricane Katrina\'s effects in New Orleans, and arranged to visit the city as part of our trip so that we could see where it stands two and a half years following Katrina. But the heart of our work was in Mississippi. We learned a great deal about the hurricane\'s psychological and emotional effects by visiting the Katrina Research Center at USM Gulf Coast. We stayed at Lagniappe Presbyterian Church in Bay St. Louis and worked on a Habitat house in Waveland. We had the opportunity to hear people\'s stories about the hurricane in all of these places, and we learned from each person the value of place and how it shapes the lives of individuals and the community.\r\n\r\nPersonally, I take from this trip a deeper sense of place - of my own place so different from the coast and of the coast itself, its culture and its people. But beyond that, I have a deeper sense of justice and what it means to be committed to a place. By watching Spike Lee\'s film, visiting New Orleans, and being so warmly welcomed in Mississippi, I can see more clearly the difference between the surface commitment of FEMA and the federal government to people and places affected by Katrina and the slow, steady commitment of organizations like the KRC, Lagniappe Church, Habitat for Humanity, and several other individuals and groups who have relocated to or decided to stay in the region to participate in slow process of rebuilding and restoring these places. \r\n\r\nNow back in my regular life, I am still learning from my experiences there and am planning to go back. I\'m grateful for this experience and for all that it is teaching me.\r\n