01:54 PM CDT on Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Stacey Plaisance / Associated Press

Five-time Grammy winning R&B artist Usher pulled on some work gloves, grabbed a pair of trimmers and chopped away at a patch of vines that had overtaken the fence at a New Orleans school shuttered by Hurricane Katrina.

Bill Haber / Associated Press

Five-time Grammy winning R&B artist Usher along with Dillard University student Donnielle Minor work to clear a tree that had grown into a fence as they help to clean up a New Orleans school damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Usher joined dozens of volunteers clearing the overgrown yard of the International School of Louisiana, the state's first foreign language-based charter school which was damaged by Katrina.

Usher, whose full name is Usher Raymond IV, joined dozens of volunteers Tuesday to clear the overgrown lawn of the International School of Louisiana, the state's first foreign language-based charter school that's been closed since Katrina hit Aug. 29.

Usher got his first glimpse of Katrina's destruction Monday, when he visited storm-damaged neighborhoods in New Orleans and nearby St. Bernard Parish.

"To see it, in this state, it's devastating," Usher said, cutting away at the vines that had twisted through the chain-link fence surrounding the school, slated to reopen later this year.

"I'm here to physically do something and hopefully motivate other people to do the same," said Usher, the latest in a growing list of celebrities to visit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast since Katrina.

Last month, actresses Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner and Cicely Tyson joined a group of women brought here by the Children's Defense Fund to bring attention to the needs of storm victims, particularly traumatized children.

Bill Haber / Associated Press

Talk show host Ellen Degeneres, a New Orleans native, also visited last month and taped portions of her show here.

Shortly after Katrina, Usher began Project Restart to help families in the Gulf Coast region find housing. Though most well-known for his dance moves and hit songs like "Yeah," he has been a strong advocate for volunteerism.

On Monday, Usher met with Xavier and Dillard University students, whose campuses flooded. Some students joined him Tuesday for the cleanup effort, among them 21-year-old Trivia Frazier.

"It was very inspirational, just knowing somebody cares," said Frazier, a junior at Dillard whose New Orleans home was flooded. "It's also an incentive to keep going."

Usher, a Chattanooga, Tenn., native who now lives in Atlanta, was scheduled to meet with business leaders in Baton Rouge on Tuesday, along with Gov. Kathleen Blanco and state legislators. He planned to visit the Mississippi Gulf Coast on Wednesday.

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On the Net:

Hands On Network, http://www.handsonnetwork.org

International School of Louisiana, http://www.isl-edu.org

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)