Elisa Ron, a Houstonian who attends the University of Dallas, said her spring break has been fun, but it’s not for the faint of heart.

That’s because Ron and some of her fellow classmates are spending their time off doing volunteer work for Operation Blessing in the Golden Triangle. On Monday, they were at Life Church in Port Arthur, creating a community garden for the citizens of Port Arthur, painting, weeding — whatever needed to be done.

On Tuesday, they will head out to Bevil Oaks and vicinity for the remainder of the week and gut some houses damaged by Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey.

Ron said her parents’ house was fine; however, her sister and grandparents’ residences didn’t fare as well and flooded.

“I was in school by then (in Dallas) and I watched the news,” she said. “You can’t watch your hometown and surrounding areas flood without it having some effect on you.”

She also had experience with Hurricanes Rita and Ike, which she had to evacuate and called it “terrifying.”

Volunteering though, is something Ron thinks she would like to continue to do in the future.

Sheila Griffin and Toby Swager, deployment managers for Operation Blessing, said they first identify the needs in a community when they arrive and ask how they can help. They did this with city of Port Arthur officials.

“We’ve been here since the beginning of the storm. We’ll be winding up next month. Until then we’ll help as many as we possibly can,” Griffin said.

In addition to college groups helping, some church groups — some from as far away as Alaska, Maine and Massachusetts — 12 states in all — descended on the Golden Triangle to help.

“A lot of homes still need gutting. They will go to the Bevil Oaks community project to beautify the neighborhood or a homeowner may need assistance. There’s a church in Orange we’re helping, too,” Swager said.

Many volunteers who previously served in the Golden Triangle have returned this week.

“They gave up their time and spent their own money to get here,” Griffin said. “It’s heartwarming to help total strangers and be the feet and hands of Jesus to give them hope.”

Nick Terranova hails from North Andover, Massachusetts and he’s also a student at the University of Dallas spending what the students call an Alternative Spring Break, gardening and gutting houses.

“It’s very good to help build people’s homes,” Terranova said. “The storm affected everyone — black and white, rich and poor, it didn’t matter. And the Lord Jesus is for everyone.”