When Eyewitness News last visited 80-year-old Montreal Farve last September, she was living in a trailer as volunteers with the United Methodist Disaster Recovery Ministry worked to rebuild her hurricane ravaged home. More than a year later, that work is finally done.

“It's hard to realize that after so much devastation that I saw here when I came the first time. It’s like a miracle," Farve said.

Virginia Tech students gathered in Montreal's backyard for a New Orleans-style commemoration. Her home was officially dedicated to the memory of Virginia Tech students Leslie Sherman and Ryan Clark, who were among the 32 people killed by a gunman on the university campus in April 2007.

“This trip actually means a great deal to me, because we’ve gone through so many sad memorials,” said Amy Belloli, a Virginia Tech YMCA volunteer. “This is kind of like one of those happy things that’s just a celebration of life, so it’s kind of a celebration of the lives they lived and dedicate our lives to service."

In a traditional jazz funeral there was celebration for lives well-lived and tremendous sorrow for how those lives were tragically cut short.

“As we have come today to honor two who have given their lives, we remember also that they shared their life,” said Dr. Don Cottrill, United Methodist Church.

Ryan “Stack” Clark helped gut houses on Thanksgiving break in 2005; he was fondly remembered.

“I knew Ryan from the first trip (to New Orleans),” said Mike Aldonas, a Virginia Tech YMCA volunteer. “He was just one of those congenial guys that you can’t help but love. He’d go out of his way to pretty much help anyone he knows."

Leslie Sherman came to New Orleans to help in the recovery during Thanksgiving break last year.

"I describe Leslie as an absolute. She was never a problem. Always a joy," said Leslie’s mother, Holly Adams Sherman.

“She raved about the opportunity to work in the kitchen and learn how to cook the local Creole gumbo and jambalaya and she just had a fantastic time…I'm quite sure there's all the likelihood she would have been in this group here anyway this year,” said her father, Tony Sherman.

The students brought stones from the Virginia Tech campus to lay in Farve’s backyard next to orange trees to commemorate Ryan and Leslie's service to New Orleans.

“The negro spiritual ‘If I can do something for somebody, my life will not be in vain,’ of course their life is not in vain and there will always be a memory of that in this backyard for so many that have done for so many in New Orleans,” Farve said.