Thanksgiving, Indeed.

Hello Everyone, and Greetings from Olympia,

Ann and I ended our 4th trip to New Orleans yesterday morning and headed home for the holidays. Our last week there was both satisfying and fun. After seeing Kelsey, Stephanie, and Jessie DuVall off over the weekend, we went back to work on Monday at Miss Peggy Severe's home on Leonidas Street. Ann and I did the telephone installation work we'd mistakenly left out of the original plan, and performed other miscellaneous tasks in the effort to finish her place by the holidays. It's at the stage now where the last of the hand-coped baseboards are going up, the cabinets are being installed, and sinks and toilets are coming to life. Soon, we'll watch her FEMA trailer head off into the sunset, just like Miss Jessie's. I can't help but wonder just what that next phase is like for folks like Miss Peggy and Miss Jessie. After months of seeing our people, feeding our people, and watching them work, one day they will look around and we'll be gone, moved on to the next home. Ann and I have seen Miss Jessie several times since we've finished our work (most recently on Saturday, when we hung a few mirrors and assembled some new furniture for her), and it just seems like it might be a lonely time once we've all left. Kind of like having a baby. All the excitement and anticipation, then the actual event and all the oohs and aahs, and then home to care for the newborn, all alone. That solitude after all the happy commotion can be deafening.

On Tuesday, Ann and I went with Rose Romero, a really wonderful long-term volunteer who has shed sunlight wherever she has worked, to the Lazarus Project, which is a group home for HIV/AIDS patients run by the Archdiocese of New Orleans. We spent the day chatting, playing games, walking together to the local market for goodies, and so forth. These folks are all alone, each of them, with very little or no outside contact with friends or relatives. It reminded me that their need for some companionship has nothing to do with Katrina, and there are places like the Lazarus Project everywhere in this country. I'm going to find a place here in Olympia and get hooked up. Having and taking the time to spend with them is the only qualification.

On Wednesday, a group of volunteers from Chicago Cares, the Chicago-based Hands On affiliate, arrived to work with us for the day. Ann and I got to take 8 of them to Second Harvest, the mother of the food banks in southern Louisiana. They are the wholesaler, if you will, for all food donations for the region. They receive, sort, process, repack, and ship tons of food to the multiple food banks in the region. They've been in business for 25 years. In the 23 years before Katrina, they processed and shipped 14 million pounds of food. In the two years since Katrina, they've handled 80 million pounds. Do that math. There's lots of need down here, and they've increased their activity level nearly 40-fold. Our team did their part that day, as we processed 16,000 pounds of food. It was one of those really good days with volunteers, where the enthusiasm is infectious, and everyone pulls together to do as much as they can, getting more energy as they work harder and harder. A really fun day with a good group I hope to see down here again.

On Thursday, we helped lead a group of 40 volunteers who were attending the National League of Cities convention that had come to town. Our volunteers were city councilpeople and mayors from cities large and small. I was really excited to work with these people because they are influential people, and the chance to talk about the condition of the city, the snail-pace of its recovery, and the quantity of work yet to begin was a rare opportunity to broadcast a clear message to folks who can make a difference when they return home. We helped to refurbish a stadium owned by the New Orleans Recreation District, one of the few that have been reopened since the storm. Hopefully, we sent them all home with a better understanding of the state of our city. I was pretty surprised that a number of them I spoke with just had no idea how things were down here.

On Friday, Ann and I returned to Miss Peggy's home to work. Since Miss Peggy was heading off to Texas for Thanksgiving with family, she spent most of the night, and all of the morning making a complete Thanksgiving dinner for everyone at Hands On that she could invite. Erika and Petra set up a makeshift dinner table with plywood and sawhorses, Miss Peggy deep-fried a Louisiana-rubbed turkey on the stove of her FEMA trailer, served it with her special oyster dressing, gumbo, greens, and lots of other stuff I can't remember to list, then finished it off with sweet-potato pie tarts she made for each of us. I've had many really wonderful Thanksgiving dinners, but that one occupies a special place in my heart.

I want to welcome a new member to my routing list, Captain Andreas Hatch of the US Army. Captain Hatch is currently serving in Iraq, and contacted Hands On after he found us on the Web. He is coming home in the Spring, and is coming to New Orleans to work with us. His email address is thejudochop@hotmail.com. Feel free to drop him a note and send your own good wishes. Captain Hatch, I wish you a quick and safe return home, and can't wait to swing a hammer with you in our adopted City soon.

I want to send special thanks to some folks who made this trip particularly special. Thanks to Mary Ellen and Reggie, who invited us to share their home and treated us like family. Thanks to Lana Corll, one of our pals from the Loyola College of Law, who tossed us the keys to her truck so we'd have transportation whenever we needed it. Lana also showered us with her friendship, attention, and New Orleans personality. Can't wait to be there for Mardi Gras with you, Lana. Thanks to Brent at Batdorf and Bronson Coffee Roasters, who loaded us up with Omar's Organic for us and for the troops. Finally, thanks to Liz, Sean, Kudi, Stephanie, Tim, Tim, Nic, Brianna, Dallas and everyone else at Hands On, who go at it day after day, mostly without a break to keep this train rolling. You all have special spots in our hearts for the work you do and the care you do it with. We love you all.

Ann and I are headed back in early January for another month on the ground. We are still looking for a matching corporate sponsor for the Tool Fund, and if you know of any organization that wants to help, please let me know. We've collected $9,900 as of today, and we are looking for a corporation that wants to participate in this Reverse-Matching grant. Usually it's the corporation that gets the ball rolling, challenging individual donors to match. We've done the matching part already. Now all we need is a business to match the money and we'll put $20,000 worth of tools in the Tool Shed. It's a chance to facilitate a whole bunch of good in one of our own American cities. Every time one of our folks picks up one of those tools, that gift gives all over again. Miss Peggy, Miss Jessie, Miss Rose, Mr. Gibson, and people like them are the beneficiaries. And so are all of us who have pulled together to demonstrate that we haven't forgotten.

My love to all. Happy Thanksgiving.

David/Dad