Melanie Chitwood was just a sixth grader at Barrington Middle School when she and her mother went to New Orleans to help out after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city

Melanie Chitwood was entering the sixth grade at Barrington Middle School when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in August 2005.

"I think it was the first natural disaster of that scale that I was able to understand. It really made an impression on me," Chitwood said. "I wanted to find some way to help those people who had lost so much."

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