More than a dozen Wheeling Jesuit University students and administrators will spend New Year’s Day preparing to leave for New Orleans to help with Katrina Recovery.

Their goal is to help with the rebuilding efforts in the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, January 1 through January 8. Erin McDonald, Assistant Director of the University’s Service for Social Action Center, Susan Haarman, House Mentor of the Mother Jones House in East Wheeling, and Josh Elek, area coordinator, will join the students.

The University will host a brief send off for the volunteers, which is open to the public, beginning at 4:30 p.m., Jan. 1, outside of Whelan Hall on the campus. The volunteers will leave the campus in vans by 5 p.m. The volunteers are expected to arrive in New Orleans on January 2 and return to campus on January 8.

A daily diary from the volunteers will appear on the University’s Web site, www.wju.edu, beginning January 2. A story on this service project will appear in a forthcoming issue of the Chronicle, the University’s alumni magazine.