Goodnight NOLA

I'm a little late in joining in the blog, but I thought I would just wait until the end of the week. We began our Alternative Spring Break journey last Saturday, March 13, at 3AM! The good thing about not getting sleep the night before a plane ride is it is so much easier to sleep on the plane, which I certainly did. When we arrived in NOLA, we got lunch at the Winn-Dixie, a big supermarket in the southeast and toured where we would be staying for the week: Camp Restore. Camp Restore was established in 2006, in what was once the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and School. Other groups from throughout the country and Canada came this week too. About 150 people in total were there. I have to say it was pretty tough living in a room with over 20 other people, but definitely doable.

That night we headed over to Bourbon Street. Craziness was going on all over the place. This was a great place for souvenirs. I got a New Orleans themed purse and a mask. Then for dinner, I had Popeye’s with Roshel, Ashley, and Triny. It was yummy.

On Sunday we spent the day at the French Quarters, which is home of America’s oldest public market. Here we went to the famous Café Du Monde which is French for Coffee of the World.The thing to get here coffee with an order of beignets, which are square pieces of dough, fried and covered with powdered sugar. It was SO good. Roshel, Triny, Ashley, Jess B, and I enjoyed our beignets on wooden stairs that led into the Mississippi River. Powdered sugar went everywhere.

Back at Camp Restore, we had a great dinner made by chef Brenda, who made all of our meals at camp. After dinner there was a church service where they showed an amazing video that showed pictures of a beautiful home before Katrina, and what was left of it after the hurricane.

Monday was our first day of service. Every morning we had a 6:30am wakeup call of Matt, the camp’s minister, singing Christian songs. It really resonated throughout the place. Breakfast was at 7am. Monday and Tuesday were spent at the NFL Youth Education Town/Boys and Girls Club. This was a nice place. There was a room with flat screen tv’s and wii’s and some other cool stuff all donated by the Saints. I spent most of Monday with Tina and Ashley cleaning the center’s kitchen. We encountered some nasty cockroaches. I’m so glad I do not live somewhere where cockroaches are all around. On Tuesday Jess B, Tina, and I put together a soccer net and then I helped Ashley put up a volley ball net. I also helped pick up debris from a patch of a lot that was being cleared out by Megan, Emma, Triny, Tina, Ashley, and Roshel. We also got to play a game of kickball with the kids. They won the game J.

Going to New Orleans, I was hoping for labor intensive service. I got my wish on Wednesday. We spent the day in the Lower 9^th Ward clearing out a lot where a house once stood. It was very overgrown and had random objects throughout it. If a lot has growth taller than 18”, the owner of the lot is charged hundreds of dollars a day. So it was very important for the lot to be cleared. It was some hard work. I have a bruise on my hand still. I helped move debris to the sidewalk, gather bricks, and dig up plants. Some things found in the rubbish were diapers, oyster shells, snakes, frogs, geckos, part of a binky, parts of old tools, and exposed wires and pipes.

Wednesday was St. Patrick’s Day so we went back to Bourbon Street. I went with Triny, Ashley, and Tina to get ice cream at this create-your-own-bowl place called Blue Penguin Yogurt. It was delicious. We decided to head over to Bourbon but instead got distracted by a taping of a show in front of the St. Louis Cathedral, which is the oldest Catholic cathedral in continual use in the United States.

The show is called Treme, which takes place 3 months after Katrina hit, and will be airing on HBO starting in April. One of the stars of the show, Steve Zahn, took a water break and we got to take a picture with him! That was very exciting, especially for those of us who knew who the actor wasJ.When we made it to Bourbon, we saw the parade and got bead necklaces thrown from the parade cars. We got so many of them. It was a fun night.

By Thursday it was getting extremely difficult to wake up, especially being sore from work the day before. We spent the day working in classrooms at J.A. Craig Elementary. This school just reopened in January and is in need of a lot of help. I couldn’t believe some of the children’s’ home life stories. It was a little scary going into it, but at the end I wanted to go back and help as much as I could.

On Friday, our last day of service, we went to a pre-kindergarten school. There were little kids younger than 5 years old already reading small words and learning to write their names! I was impressed. They were so cute and very full of energy. One of their favorite books is Goodnight Nola by Cornell P. Landry. It was a very cute book.

Later in the day we took a tour around St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9^th ward with Kathy, who is a native to the area. It was nice taking a tour with someone who lived in the area before

the storm hit. On the tour she told facts like the water coming in was so powerful the power lines were left standing at a 45° angle. People were not let back into their homes until 7 weeks after the storm, and when they were starting to be let in, there was a lot of security to keep looters out. 26,000 homes were deemed unlivable. The water that flooded was not just from the hurricane. Levees broke which caused the flooding. The water rose in minutes, and took months to clear out in some places. 20% of St. Bernard Parish did not evacuate.

NOLA had about the same percentage. On many houses there were X’s painted. In the upper part was written the date the house was inspected, the left was who did the inspection, and the number represented how many people were found dead. Most of the homes with that number greater than 0 were painted over. Red X’s on houses were to mark which houses were going to get knocked down. Going through some of the neighborhoods

you can see just a few homes built back, and the rest stay empty. Kathy took us to a levee in the neighborhood that is being built by the Make it Right Foundation, which is the foundation whose goal is to build 150 green storm resistant homes in the Lower 9^th Ward and is fronted by Brad Pitt. They were pretty cool looking homes.

For dinner we went to a local place called R & O’s. They had really great food. I had a seafood platter and tried craw fish for the first time. It was weird. It was so filling I could not finish even half of it. I was sad to throw it out, but unfortunately food is not allowed past security at the airport.

This brings me to today. At the layover in Cleveland, a few of us actually came across an alumna from our university who graduated in 1990. She was interested in our trip. This has been quite the exciting week in the Who Dat? Nation. I had fun at the hot tourist spots, enjoyed amazing authentic food, got a slight tan, and found joy in helping the New Orleans community. I can’t believe it is already over. This week went by so fast. Back to school and loads of homework. Coming home was very bittersweet. I had been looking forward to this trip since it was first announced. My mom went to Louisiana in September 2005 to help get food, water, and shelter to people who could not evacuate. She was there during Hurricane Rita. Her service rubbed off on me. It's nearly five years later and I learned that even though a lot has been built back, a lot more is still in need of a lot of help in New Orleans and the surrounding areas. I hope to go back and do more in the near future.

*Photos by Roshel Vas and Ashley Katon-Donegal and Google images

~~Amber

This week so far :)

So this has truly been an amazing week. From helping around the Southeast Boys and Girls Club, to clearing out an unpleasant lawn. This week has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to give. I have learned that giving comes in many forms. One can give with love, one can give with helping hands and most importantly, one can give with understanding. I believe the people of New Orleans appreciate not only the fact that we came to help rebuild their broken down buildings, but that we came to understand what they having been going through in the past five years. I can go home knowing that I saw first hand what it is like to live in fear and darkness. I meet people who gave their hearts for our service, and i will forever be thankful. I will definitely be back to New Orleans to give and to continue to spread awareness.

Thank You NOLA,

I am forever grateful :)

P.S Big Mama's Chicken and Waffles was amazing!

Work in the Lower 9th Ward

Wednesday's service work in the Lower 9th Ward is beyond words. But I'll do my best to elaborate.

Our UHa crew arrived at the Lower 9th Ward Village Community Center (read more about the fantastic work of the Community Center and its Executive Director Ward "Mack" McLendon at http://www.lower9thwardvillage.org/new/) at 9:30am. Partnering with another student group from Camp Restore, we took on a major clean-up project at an abandoned property with a no-longer standing house; all that remained of the space were weeds and dead foliage that stood at least three feet high, bricks, and debris galore: wrought iron doors, oyster shells, chip bags, diapers, beer and soda bottles, jewelry, cds, tools, and much more. I honestly felt as if I was unearthing an ancient civilization, discovering lost artifacts that remind us not of our disparities but rather of our commonalities and shared humanity. It was an eerie, unsettling experience that shook me to the bone. The same feelings--along with great anger and frustration--overcame me when I saw abandoned homes with the spray-painted X's, which signifies the date that the house was searched by a rescue team, the rescue team who searched the home, and the number of dead human and animal bodies found within the home. Our raking, hoeing, cutting down of trees, weed whacking, and picking up of bricks and debris lasted for over five hours, making the before and after of the space as distinct as night and day. The transformation was certainly clear, and the aches we've endured from the strenuous work were absolutely worth it. This was, to say the very least, an AMAZING experience!!

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Debriefing with the Lower Ninth Ward Village Community Center Executive Director Mack was truly enlightening and touching. We asked him several questions regarding clarification on the existing conditions after New Orleans, and we were left even more shocked and disgusted than before. It really moved me when he shared his heart-wrenching experience with Hurricane Katrina, and how he expressed how genuinely inspired and full of hope he was by volunteers like us. He himself is a tremendous inspiration, and for him to say that was wonderfully heart-felt and special.

The fact that there is still an incredible amount of progress to be made, even five years after the disaster, is unreal, inhumane, and terribly disheartening. But people like Mack, the long-term volunteers from restoration camps such as Camp Restore, and all those who are working on a daily basis to re-build and re-invigorate this great city are the true leaders and heroes of our time.

Later postings!!

Tuesday, March 16th-Boys and Girls Club: Part 2

So, our UHa crew returned to the NFL YET Boys and Girls Club of Southeast Louisiana on Tuesday with more of a focus on working on outdoor tasks. I was excited about working outside because the weather was quite sunny and beautiful. I volunteered to untangle and, with the help of Amber, put up a volleyball net. I enjoyed doing the untangling and assembling of the net because, due to the center's lack of supplies, it took a good deal of problem-solving and teamwork to put everything together, skills that are always very useful to continue to hone. When the net was up, I moved on to first sweeping the front entrance of the center and then picking up and throwing away debris found around the premises. I then volunteered to do some major curbside landscaping across the street from the center--pulling out weeds larger than my head, raking and bagging mounds of dead vegetation, and much more. Back-breaking work to say the least!

Around 3:30pm, the school children began to arrive. They're an definitely a spirited, ebullient bunch! We played an intense game of ultimate kickball with the children, with our UHa crew as one team and the children as the other? The winner--a no-brainer? Absolutely not--those children whooped us something awful! They were crushing us like it was their job! Quite embarrassing on our behalf, but fantastic, hilarious fun, no doubt! Those children are so bright and gifted, and it was a pleasure spending the near two hours that we did with them.

When we left the Boys and Girls Club, I felt worn out, but delighted. We as a team had made tremendous improvements with the center the two days we were there, and I was left with a feeling of great satisfaction and a hope for success and fulfillment with future projects. I wonder what's in store for tomorrow...

Later postings!

Lower 9th Warde

The Lower 9th Ward Village is a community-driven, community-led, nonprofit 501(c)3 organization and neighborhood center based in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans, Louisiana. The main goal of the Village is to bring together the entire Lower 9th Ward and to empower community members to be self-sufficient and to sustain an equitable quality of life. The Village focuses on connecting the elderly and youth, with services and providing care and guidance from the community as a whole. It takes a village…

On every corner on every street houses like this are still board up. It was a very eerie feeling as we drove to our work site to see how much of this neighborhood is still devastated even after 5 years.

As you will read in other blogs, today our task was to clear a double wide lot that has not been touched since August of 2005 when the homeowner was last there. Here we are clearing out the cement foundation bricks as well as trees that we cut down. I will post more before photos as we upload them so you can see what 5 hours of weed pulling, cement block carrying, and tree cutting down can do!

Day two of landscaping

So after two days of weeding and landscaping type tasks, I feel that I can become a professional landscaper!! The tasks have been grueling and hard work as we continued to clean more areas that were filled with debris today. We worked in the lower 9th Ward at the Village Community Center and helped by clearing a lot where a two family house once stood. When we arrived at the lot, we all were stunned by the trash and overgrowth of weeds/trees in the lot. The space being cleaned was located amongst other homes that were fixed up and are currently inhabited by families. The day went by very quickly as we moved hundreds and hundreds of bricks out of the lot....on top of weeding and cutting down of trees that had grown sporadically throughout the property.

This day of work was truly humbling as I saw homes that were still abandoned and many properties that were beyond repair. This area was the most devastated area and even today (5 years later) only about 25% of its previous inhabitants have returned to live there again. The most tragic thing I saw were homes that were marked by the agencies that came and inspected the house after the flooding and actually saw that either dead people or animals were found within the home. This area truly is in need of many more years of help from volunteers as there are many homes beyond the point of any repair that are still abandoned.

On a better note, since it was St. Patrick's Day, we all decided to meet up with the Uhart Hillel group and meet at the Cafe du Monde. We watched the parade and collected many Mardi Gras beads that were thrown around Bourbon Street! We also stood on the set of a new HBO show called "Treme" starring Steve Kahn, with whom we got our picture taken. The night was a blast and a perfect ending for such a hard day of work!!

Lower 9th Ward

What can I say about today? At the very least it was one of the most fulfilling/heartbreaking days of service that we have had so far.

We were placed at the Village Community Center in the lower 9th ward. For those that do not know, this area (along with St. Bernard's Parish) was the heaviest hit by the hurricane. To make matters worse, the area was already at an economic disadvantage pre-Katrina. Houses and buildings were destroyed- some even completely disappearing altogether. Sadly, close to 5 years later the 9th ward resembles that of a ghost town. Over 75 percent of its residents have not come back and those that have, are left without grocery stores, gas stations, and more. For the most part the 9th ward has been completely neglected. Houses are falling apart, overgrown, boarded up and broken. Mac, the leader of the Village Community Center informed us that little to no help has come to the residents of the lower 9th ward.

For our assignment we cleaned out a lot (that had previously been occupied by a house). Though the house was abandoned by its owner, he still had ownership. Therefore, legally he still was responsible for the upkeep of his property. In New Orleans there is an ordinance that if your grass gets over 18 inches the resident is forced to pay a fine of over 500 dollars. For many, this fine has doubled and tripled- leaving the owners with absolutely no reason to come back.

Though we only cleaned out a single lot, I know that our service has made a difference. Mac stressed to us that beyond the actual physical act that we did, the volunteers that have come down to the lower 9th ward give its inhabitants HOPE. This hope is what is getting many of them through this difficult time and showing them that people actually do CARE and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Of course I wish I could do more- I wish that I donate a million dollars and hug every child and save every stray dog but of course that is impossible. Instead I am happy that I am making a small difference in someones life.

On a happier note- Happy St. Paddy's Day to everyone! I am being hurried off the computer as we make our way down to the French Quarters and Bourbon Street for the evening.

:-) Emma