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Hello Everyone, and Greetings From New Orleans,
Figuratively, I've been sitting here at this screen for the past 5 months, staring at the salutation, trying to find the inspiration to write. Ann and I were here in New Orleans last fall, and I just had nothing to tell you that I hadn't told you many times before. Rather than phoning-in something just to say I'd written to you, I just put it away. I feel badly about that, because even though the story may have become a bit repetitive when I try to write it, that's only because I'm not very good at this.
Here we are, 4-1/2 years past the storm, and 61,000 homes are still officially blighted. If anything, the story here is more urgent and compelling now. Yes, the debris piles are pretty much gone. Yes, a lot of rebuilding has occurred, and many families have come home and life has returned to normal for them. But as you see how much work is left to do all over the city, it becomes clear that time has played a cruel trick on us. It has become so normal to see homes that are not rebuilt that it's sometimes difficult to notice them as the tragedies and sorrow each of them represent. We should be shocked when we see them, but they are so omnipresent that our brains have reserved a place for them in the space where we remember things as they are, and they are no longer unexpected or out-of-place.
On this, our twelfth trip, Ann and I got to work on the home of Miss Denise Henry. Miss Henry's Banks Street home is a double shotgun that prior to Katrina was home to Miss Henry, her brother, daughter, and granddaughter. The area took nearly 10 feet of water from the 17th Street Canal breech. The family escaped initially to the Astrodome in Houston, and then on to San Antonio for a longer stay. Miss Henry successfully navigated the Road Home path, and used that money in addition to insurance proceeds and savings to hire a contractor, who did not do the work and ran off with the money. Rebuilding Together took on her project, and when Ann, Bill Goslin and I showed up to work, the house was approaching the final stages of construction. Bill went to work rebuilding the back entrance to her home, sealing up holes in the framing and sheeting, re-hanging the back door, and building a new soffit above the back door. Ann and I worked inside. Ann got to work with some of the new leaders, showing them how to lay ceramic tile, this time in a very tiny, not square shower that was shoe-horned in under the stairs. Ann and I got to do odd jobs upstairs, hanging and trimming doors, plugging holes in the walls and floor, and building custom trim in the bathroom. The Rebuilding Together team, as always, was organized and determined. By the time we finished our time there, the home was much closer to completion.
One afternoon, Bill, Ann and I drove out to the Bayou to visit the home of Mr. Ted White, who is a client of Davida Finger at the Loyola Legal Aid Clinic. Mr. White had a very leaky roof with no apparent leaky spot. We searched the roof and found several possible points of entry, and plugged them with a very effective roof patching material. After the first serious rain, Mr. White reported that the leak had all but stopped. We weren't very happy to hear that there is still a small leak somewhere, but short of stripping the roof off and replacing it entirely, we shot all our ammo doing our patch job. It's 99% better, anyway, and we did what we could.
One of our great March pleasures has been that we typically run into the students who come annually from The Juilliard School in New York. During my first March trip 3 years ago, I got to work with these gifted and huge-hearted people, and they bring me joy every time I see them. This year was especially great because one of my 2007 team members, Meredith Lustig, was back as a Masters student and mentor to this year's group. Meredith and I got to frame the bathroom walls at Miss Peggy Severe's home in the Hollygrove, and we had a great time doing it. That group was and is very special to me, and Meredith's million-watt smile took me back to that great week we all spent together.
The Saints won the Super Bowl while we were there, and the City was awash in joy. No cars were tipped over and burned, and crime virtually disappeared for a day or two as people celebrated. I heard more than a few commentators boil the Saints' win down by saying, "Now, finally, Hurricane Katrina is behind New Orleans, and life can go on."
Oh, were it so easy. But, the Saints did provide an incredible amount of happiness to a City that sure could use it. It was a great pleasure for us to be here for the game and the celebration that followed.
In the midst of all the rebuilding, there are people all over the City who go about their daily business of trying to make their neighborhoods and the lives of the people who inhabit them better. One such person is Reverend Lance Eden, who recently left the First Street United Methodist Church to start his own independent congregation in Central City. First Street was the site of our beloved bunkhouse, which was home to thousands of us volunteers over the course of nearly two years. The Rev was assigned to First Street only two months prior to Katrina. It was his first assignment following his ordination. Following Katrina, The Methodist Church hierarchy offered him another parish, outside New Orleans and away from the damage of Katrina. The Rev said no thank you, and went about cleaning the church and serving the people of Central City. Nic and Bri and others showed up from distant cities, armed with water, blankets and other supplies for people in need. Between them and the Rev, a partnership was born that spawned Hands On New Orleans. The Rev talked his superiors into converting the church's Social Hall into the Hands On bunkhouse, and for the next two years, we volunteers called it home, 100 volunteers at a time. Reverend Eden made it our home with his commitment to his congregation and to his neighbors in Central City. In doing so, he performed a loving and generous service to those we were able to help. He also performed an equally-loving and equally-generous service to those of us who came to help. His example and tireless efforts on behalf of his people set the table for us volunteers to share the lives and joys and sorrows of what became our neighbors, our friends, our families away from home. Every single person who has come and labored here knows exactly what I am talking about.
And now we have a chance to help the Rev, our Rev, take the next step for his people and for Central City. His new, non-denominational congregation has begun a Building Fund to help them find and acquire a small church building of their own. At this time, they are borrowing space from a small Baptist church which has generously allowed the Rev to temporarily set up shop. Through their own efforts, they have already banked $10,000 toward this goal. They need $50,000 in the bank to establish their bona fides as a serious, if young, congregation. That number is thought to be sufficient to post as a down-payment on a piece of Central City property, hopefully with some structure already on it suitable for developing into their Church and other future structures that would help them live their mission of service to the poor people of Central City. Their goal is to raise this amount by the 1st Anniversary of their founding, which will occur in August of this year. They are already organized as a charitable organization, so all contributions are tax deductible.
Ann and I, along with our long-term volunteer partner Bill Goslin, decided to get involved in this effort, and to hopefully bring along each and every volunteer who ever set their head on a pillow in our First Street Bunkhouse. We're reaching out to as many of them as we know, and asking them in every way possible to reach others they worked with, until we've networked our way into contacting every one of them. Ann spent a considerable amount of time getting a non-profit PayPal account set up for this purpose (If you click on the buttons above, that's where you go. Trustworthy and easy.) If each of us made a small financial contribution, in addition to a small time commitment to contact their fellow volunteers and all family and friends who didn't volunteer but have followed the rebuilding effort, we as a team could provide substantial assistance to the Rev's effort to put his stake in the ground and build his Church.
To be honest with y'all, I'm not much of a church-goer anymore. But I do go to church when I'm in New Orleans, and that's because Reverend Eden spreads the Gospel in such loving and tangible ways. He does it in the pulpit, with his gifted preaching skills, making his biblical readings relevant to the realities of Central City life for his congregants. It is a gift I have witnessed and absorbed many times. As important to me, he has done it in so many ways outside the pulpit. Defending the bunkhouse and the volunteers from his superiors and congregants when they wondered what this young preacher was up to and when would they get their church back was just one way.
As we arrived here for this latest trip, we dropped in for Sunday services with Reverend Eden, and in the three weeks we've been here, we seen him three times in front of his congregation. Seeing what he has already accomplished, I have every confidence that he will lead his congregation to their own church building soon. There isn't much room in their small borrowed space, especially when you consider the size of the Rev's heart.
My love to all,
David/Dad
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Saturday, May 30, 2009
What Goes Around...
Hello Everyone, and Greetings from New Orleans,
It's time to take stock of where we've been, what we've done, who we've done it for, and who we've done it with and been inspired by.
In September of 2006, Ann and I made our first trip here to this richly-textured and wounded foreign land. At the time, we naively assumed we'd make that trip, and that trip only.
Over the past nearly 3 years, 10 trips and 10 months here on the ground, I've seen a lot. A lot has changed, albeit glacially when you look at the pace of the actual rebuilding. Nevertheless, over that period of time, even a snail makes progress. It's a lot like watching your kid grow. Each day, nothing is apparently changing. Add a few years, though, and wow--what happened?
On our very first day at work here, Saturday September 9th, 2006, Ann and I awoke for the first time in our bunkhouse at the First Street United Methodist Church on the corner of First and Dryades Streets. We had no idea where we were. "Central City", I heard someone call it. We wandered around the bunkhouse, meeting people and trying to figure out how this all worked. I walked out to our toolshed to see what it looked like. The first person I met there, whom I assumed to be a boss based upon his apparent knowledge of where everything was located and how everything should be organized (We later found out he'd been there two weeks ahead of us) was a foreign fellow (South African, we later learned) named Reggie Derman. In what I came to understand as Reggie's general high-energy and focused style, Reggie immediately got me involved in the gathering of tools for our job that day. When instructed, I got in the van with a bunch of other strangers, and off we rolled into the city. Our work that day was to gut a large home (I couldn't call it a double-shotgun because I didn't know what that was) on Robertson Street, just off Esplanade. I didn't know that "Esplanade" rhymes with "lemonade" here in New Orleans. All I knew was turn here, see a park full of FEMA trailers, turn there, see an entire block of homes with doors open and windows missing, jump on an expressway, see the Superdome and its huge sign "Superdome Reopening September 25th", jump off the expressway, see a huge homeless camp underneath I-10, turn again, pass empty storefronts, a shuttered car rental agency and an empty car dealership, then turn again, once more, and then once more. The van stopped, and we got out. My head was spinning. Red "X"s painted on every home, communicating messages I had no idea how to interpret.
That day I watched and participated in some of the dirtiest work I'd ever done. All the while, I soaked up, and then, like everyone else, radiated the energy that group generated. I heard laughing, loud music, hammers banging, debris crashing from the ceiling to the floor, and wheelbarrows bouncing down the front steps. I wore a Tyvek suit, a hardhat, and a respirator, just like the big kids, and I was doing my best to emulate their work.
That's all it took. At the end of the day, I was hooked.
I'll speed this up. Caliopie. Jamie and Alex before starting their freshman year in college. Jim and Lindsey. After that, Mr. Gibson's siding project. Sushi. Ann went home. Miranda takes her place at the saw. AmeriCorps NCCC. Amanda. Miss Rose's foundation. Troy came. Brian came. Team Nasty is born. .38 Special kicks ass. Sod busting in the Hoffman Triangle. Nic. Steve Gleason blocks the first Atlanta punt in the Saints' first post-Katrina game home in the rebuilt Superdome. Saints score. New Orleans erupts in joy. Chandra. Prez. Steve. Pam. Beers at Igor's. Emma. Melissa. Jim assures Richard we actually landed on the moon. Gunshots at dinner time on Dryades. Troy and I see the Lower Ninth for the first time. Brian goes home to Alabama. Troy moves to Biloxi to work. I head home. Ann meets Lana Corll at the Houston Quilt Show. Ann returns to New Orleans for trip number 2 and roofs a house. I return in March for my trip number 2. Kelsey comes with me. Mr. Carter's gut project and fried chicken. Kelsey and I learn how to eat crawfish. Kelsey trades kisses on the cheek for roses at the St. Joseph's parade in the Quarter. Juilliard arrives, along with VCU, Appalachian State and Florida kids. Jamie Tam's Dance Party. Davida Finger of the Loyola Law Katrina Clinic helps Miss Rose after Lana introduces us. Miss Peggy's rebuild gets going. Liz leads. So does Miss Jessie's. Sean leads. Bunkhouse Goodbye Nights get tearier. Renee' moves from New York. Reggie leads the New Orleans East Super Gut, and inspires us all by telling us that "Good work, hard work--that's important. But what I really want today is for all of you to do your work with love for this family you will never meet. Leave your love inside this home, and this family will use it to wash away their tears." He was 21 years old. We do 4 days of work in 1 and 1/2 days. Noah. Crystal. Ashley. Hands On New Orleans hosts the Hands On Network National Convention. Geneva tells us all to turn our Hands On shirts inside-out while we are drinking Hands On-provided beers at a Hands On-hosted private reception, to ensure that no one will know we are from Hands On. Alan. Ryan. Aaron. Todd. Red. Buck. Cat. Mary Ellen and her sister Lauren arrive to volunteer for a week. We all work at Miss Rose's, along with JJ and others. Eric stops Miss Rose's 5-month old water leak. I try to stop her $2,000 water bill. Mary Ellen (later "Teacher") and Reggie hit it off. Eddie. Chet. Public Enemy Number 2. I come back on July 31. Wyndham Resorts puts us up for the entire month without charge because the bunkhouse is shut down. Sad days leaving the old bunkhouse. The AB in the ME. Siding Miss Rose's home. Kudi. Jordan. Working to finish Miss Jessie's home. Teacher moves to New Orleans. Ann arrives and shows us all how to tile Miss Jessie's floors. Caliopie and Adam become the first Katrina Couple at Hands On when they return to marry. 2nd Katrina anniversary. We miss (by 5 minutes, when the police wave us through) a wonderful chance to tell President Bush how much we "appreciate" all he's done for New Orleans. Anderson Cooper joins us in Violet, LA with the summer bugs. Back for Halloween. Ann sends full-sized candy bars for the kids on Dryades Street, and Reggie, Teacher, Miranda I distribute them on Halloween night. Miss Jessie's FEMA trailer is bid goodbye, and Miss Jessie moves back into her home. The Hume Family and their seed company send 1,542 pounds of vegetable and flower seeds to the people of New Orleans. UPS ships 'em gratis. Ann, Kelsey, and Stephanie arrive, and we all help Miss Jessie hang curtains and assemble furniture. Miss Peggy feeds us Thanksgiving Dinner made in her FEMA trailer. The Tool Fund is born, and Kathie and Big Al anchor it. Ann and I, with Reggie and Teacher helping, lead a project in January to build the Douglass High School deck with our new friends from Kaiser Permanente. Doc. Nic. Teri. Shawn. Joe. Eddie. John. Edmiston Barriers. Our first real Mardi Gras. Small world as we meet Professor Philip Frohnmayer at our regular coffee place. Bill Goslin arrives again, and the NBA sponsors a number of service projects during All Star Week and we insulate a home in Gentilly under the leadership of Steve ("McStevey", if you get my drift, ladies). Davida asks us to see if we can help a family in Metairie finish up their rebuilding. In 3 days, Reggie, Emily and I complete it for Mr. Pat and Miss Laura, and the concept of The $500 Project is born. Sean and Eric install the cabinets and sink, and the Patterson's have their home back. Duke. Lucy. RIP Lucy. Sarah T. Reed High School in New Orleans East gets an external makeover. One year later, it's as beautiful as ever. Cousins' Creole Restaurant gets a paint job. Ruthie. Hanging with Teacher, Lana, and Reggie with Teacher's class at the Zephyrs' baseball game. Darryl and LiAnne banging it out day after day for United Saints, the Rev's rebuilding organization. People come and go, and come again, leaving their imprint on the lives of the people they serve. Amy. Sean. Erik. Liz. Chandra. Allison. Kristin. Bri. Teacher signs on for another year teaching at Audubon Charter School, and the school celebrates with us. Our son Kevan funds our work, and Baby Ray and Mr. Harold Bellanger's home gets a little help. Their home is the magnetic center of Gentilly. Others returned only after they heard Baby Ray and Mr. Harold had come home. Painting out their orange "X" with Baby Ray and Mr. Harold's help makes my Top 10 List of emotional highs. Gustav. John Jowers drives all night to get us to Baton Rouge from Atlanta. A Lady With a Chain Saw?!?! Road tripping in the Bayou with Ann and Reggie to clear trees off cars and homes. Bringing Jake home after another hurricane. Lana's lower level is completed, and Ann tiles her floor as only Ann can. Ann meets Christo Raines and his fellow Jesuit Volunteers who live across the street from Lana. Reggie and James Gandolfini. Miss Della's home gets tiled as Ann and I get introduced to Rebuilding Together. Kaiser puts $30,000 in to triple-match the $10,000 raised for the Tool Fund. Miss Fern. Ann. Miss Monique. Teacher. Reggie. The Humes send another 1,100 pounds of seeds to Parkway Partners for Macon Fry to distribute. FedEx ships 'em gratis. Back again in February. Our Jesuit Volunteers join Ann and me and do the Franklin Street Mini Gut for Miss Debra. Bill Goslin returns. Miss Pearson's home gets a lot of loving attention from the three of us and Reggie. Juilliard returns for a third year. Miss Antoinette K-Doe passes away on Mardi Gras morning. Todd and I button up the places at Miss Debra's where squatters have broken in. Ann, Reggie, Todd, Niko, and Niko's parents do some work and get Miss Cloud's home removed from a court-ordered demolition list. Mr. Ronald. Miss Wanda. Miss Anne. The faces and the names of people who still need help despite doing what they can to rebuild their homes and their lives. Mr. Hammond thanking God for help from Pennsylvania who saw his story in the New York Times and came to help him rebuild ahead of some FEMA functionary showing up to take his trailer. God Bless Davida Finger. Returning to join Rebuilding Together. Miss Janet's home in the Holy Cross. Miss Alice's home in Hollygrove. Reggie quits his job and joins the team for one last old-school workfest before he and Teacher move to Chicago. Tile a floor. Raise a wheelchair deck and ramp. Reframe a wall and fix the siding. The Finest Microwave Hotdog in the 1600 Block of Hollygrove Street. Rod Rian in the Morning on 104.1 FM, The Rock of New Orleans, live from Houston. Lots of water. Batdorf and Bronson Coffee all along the way.
I know paragraphs aren't supposed to go on that long. Thanks for staying with me.
On Friday, May 29th, Reggie and I finished up our work together in New Orleans. I was really happy that day. Reggie was with me on my first day in New Orleans, and I was with him on his last. There was something right about us being there, together, as it began for us and as it ended for us. Hopefully, we'll get a chance to work down there together again, but that Friday was the official end. What he's left and what he's taking away from his experience in New Orleans will live on, both for him and for his City. He is a true Son of the City. Someday, it will be my honor to attend the ceremony when he takes his oath of United States Citizenship. Reg, the Federal Courthouse is on the corner of Camp and Lafayette. We'll be there with you.
Travel safely, Reggie and Teacher. Good luck in everything that comes after this. You are loved, you are remembered, and trust me, you will be missed.
Go Cubs.
My love to all.
David/Dad
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Rebuilding. Together. Again.
Hello Everyone, and Greetings from New Orleans,
As many of you know, our last trip here was difficult and problematic in a number of ways. After returning home from that trip, Ann and I vowed to put it behind us and find a way to get back to the work we originally came here to do. I'm happy to report that it seems we've done just that. We joined Rebuilding Together, an organization that is focused on rebuilding Katrina-damaged homes primarily for elderly and disabled people. We've worked a bit with Rebuilding Together in the past, and found them to be focused, organized, and very capable. It's been a very refreshing change to simply show up at the assigned address at 8:30 am and go to work. The tools are already there. The materials we need are already there. The AmeriCorps team is already there. There's a porta-potty outside. There's cold water in a cooler. All we do is walk inside, get our work assignment and go to work. At 4pm, we close it up and head home. In the morning, we get up and do it again. Our kind of gig.
This week's work had us on Royal Street in the Holy Cross section of the Lower Ninth, working to finish one side of a double-shotgun home that belongs to Miss Janet and Miss Glenda, two sisters who have lived in that home for over 40 years. The Holy Cross neighborhood is at the southern tip of the Lower Ninth, up against the river and as far away as you could get from the Industrial Canal breeches that catastrophically destroyed homes closer to the breaks. Although the Holy Cross sits on some of the highest ground in New Orleans, homes there took water to the roofs of their porches.
These two ladies grew up in this home, and lived there with their mother before the storm. Miss Janet told me that the three of them were evacuated to the Superdome, where they witnessed, "Everything you heard about. It was hell. Rapes, murders, deaths from exhaustion, stress, dehydration. It shortened my mama's life, seeing all of that."
Miss Janet never wanted to come back home, afraid of what she'd find inside her childhood home. But her mama couldn't stay away, and one year after the floodwalls failed, they came home. With resources they had at hand, they had one side rebuilt, and the three of them shared it while they tried to figure out how to rebuild the other side, which the sisters would then occupy. Sadly, last fall, their mama died, having been the one who insisted they come home, but never seeing the rebuilding completed.
On Mothers' Day, the sisters decided to go see their mama and leave her flowers. At the last minute, Miss Glenda couldn't do it. It was just too hard, this close to completion, to kneel at her mama's grave and tell her they were almost done, knowing she wouldn't be there when we finally packed up our tools for the last time. Miss Janet made the visit for both of them.
Their home is very well kept, on a very well-kept street. This is a neighborhood in the truest sense. People know each other, look out for each other, and, dare I say, care for each other. This corner of the Lower Ninth got organized immediately after the storm, and there was never a doubt about what they'd do together--they were coming home. End of story.
Royal Street is beginning to look recovered. There is still work going on at a few homes, and there is one derelict home across the street from Miss Janet and Miss Glenda's home, but the paint on all of the others is fresh, and life is beginning to return to normal. Normal, I guess, if you can factor in the loss of your mama after huddling with her in a dark Superdome concourse, protecting her from the dangers and the sights and the smells of death, and then lose her so close to finally finishing the rebuilding of your childhood home.
That's what normal looks like now.
My love to all,
David/Dad
Postscripts:
1) Ann and I arrived on Saturday. On Monday, our dog Boo went into the emergency room, where the vets recovered a piece of gravel she had sucked all the way into her lung. On Tuesday, Ann flew home to care for her, to administer her antibiotics to fight back the risk of pneumonia from the procedure, and to keep her quiet and warm. We sure do miss you, Ann.
2) Last Fall, we worked at the home of Miss Fern Kern. You can read her story in my November 9th entry, Falling Through the Cracks. Miss Fern has been away from her home for a couple of months, living in a convalescent center recovering from a fall. In advance of her return, Ann called Bill Goslin, our pal and fellow volunteer, and asked him to check the house out to see if everything was OK. Bill happened to be in New Orleans on his latest trip. Ann prepared him for the shock of seeing the condition of the structure, which is beyond basic repair. As we've come to expect from Bill, he didn't just fire up the water heater and make sure the fridge was cold. He saw the bathroom, and then brought another long-term volunteer over with him, and they spent days rebuilding the bathroom walls, ceiling and floor. Further, they decided that, with more help and some funds, they could do some wall rebuilding and roof repair throughout the house. Bill asked Amy Allen to see what could be done, and Amy got our friends at Kaiser Permanente involved. The Kaiser folks are arriving this weekend for their latest week of work here in New Orleans. They are going to provide time and money to help Miss Fern live in a bit more dignity.
Thanks Ann. Thanks Bill and friends. Thanks Amy. Thanks Kaiser. I love you all.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Something's Happening Here
Hello Everyone, and Greetings from New Orleans,
Ann and I arrived on February 19th. Once again we're staying in our friend Lana Corll's guest room and driving her pickup, and our volunteers are drinking the great coffee always provided by our pals at Batdorf & Bronson- thanks Lana and thanks Batdorf & Bronson. We are very grateful.
The Work
A couple of weeks before we arrived, we heard from our fellow volunteer Bill Goslin. He extended a business trip to Texas with a week in New Orleans before heading back to his family in upstate New York. We love working with Bill because he's a) very talented, b) very motivated, and c) is a great guy with a great heart. Our kind of fellow would-be New Orleanian. We spent a week with Bill (and Reggie on his day off) working at a couple of different sites. Bill just doesn't quit. Between the four of us, we repaired Miss Emma Pearson's home, which was full of drywall fractures that occurred because she had virtually completed the rebuilding of her Upper Ninth Ward home when she received a grant to raise the home several feet. The home got raised, and basically all drywall around the windows and doors fractured. With Ann's and Bill's skill mudding and taping, and all of our brawn sanding and painting, we knocked that job out. I went back last week with Reggie to re-hang all of the interior doors and to prepare the rest of the baseboard and trim for installation. Miss Emma and her daughter Miss Donna spent Sunday cooking an entire Sunday-Mom Meal for us, which we enjoyed with our friend and host Lana Corll.
Bill spent his week in the bunkhouse with this year's group of volunteers from the Juilliard School. You'll remember Juilliard from my entries of March 2007, when I had the honor of sharing the bunkhouse with that year's group of very talented and very inspiring students. They have come back each year with a new group, but with an incredible institutional memory of the work and what their involvement means to it. There is something very special about the Juilliard students who choose to join this annual effort in New Orleans. This year's group was no different.
Bill, Ann and I also spent the first half of our first day together in Hands On's new tool warehouse. They moved in on February 1st, but most of the tools save for rakes shovels and brooms were still not organized or available. We needed tools, so we decided to jump in and organize. By noon, we'd found and organized most of the power tools and most of the hand tools. Made our work a lot easier after that because we now knew where everything was.
That Saturday, Ann and I took a group of Jesuit Volunteer Corps members to Franklin Street to do a mini-gut and clean up for Miss Debra. In 5 hours, they had completely cleaned out all debris left behind by the storm, and had gutted damaged ceilings throughout. These volunteers are in New Orleans for a year, assigned to a variety of full-time projects, but they joined us because they wanted to help with the work we were doing. It was old-school Tyvek and respirators, and they did their work very well. Last week, Todd and I went back to secure a few doors that allow access by squatters and thieves.
In between, Ann and I headed to the Lower Ninth Ward to begin a 3-day project requested by Davida Finger of the Loyola Law Katrina Clinic. To get Miss Jeanetta Cloud's home in the Lower Ninth removed from a City-ordered Demolition List, there was a list of improvements that needed to be made to the exterior of the home. Ann and I removed rotten soffit and fascia boards one one side of the house. The next day, Reggie and I cut and primed the new material, and we then installed the new soffit. That Friday, I had a team of 5 people (Todd, Niko, and Emily from Hands On, and Niko's parents, Barb and Jerry, who were in town for a long weekend with their son). Todd and Niko installed the new fascia boards and trim, everyone painted, we repaired two damaged siding areas, and Jerry and I installed roof flashing on two sides of the house. Our work didn't rebuild the home, but we were pleased to hear last week that the court agreed that our repairs were sufficient to move Miss Jeanetta's home off the demolition list for two more months while she tries to move her Road Home application towards closing, after which she will do what she has long desired to do, which is rebuild and move home.
After Ann went home on March 12th, I spent time at the home of Miss Doretha McCray, who owns a double-shotgun on the corner of Gallier and Roman in the Upper Ninth. We weren't able to get much work done for her, but Todd, Reggie and I installed a few light fixtures and made functional a half-assed handrail Miss Doretha's contractors partially installed prior to walking off her job and leaving her high-and-dry. When Ann and I arrived to scout this home a few weeks ago, Miss McCray and her daughter Wanda showed us through the home. They paid the contractor to complete her home, and it is nearly complete except the bathrooms don't operate yet (and the tile work is so bad I can't believe anyone would have so little pride that they could call what they did "work" at all), the kitchen has cabinets but no countertops or sink, the once-beautiful hardwood floors lie un-refinished, with the gouges, scratches, paint and other damage that comes from first being flooded and then being left unprotected from construction workers and the ancillary damage they cause in the normal course of their work. Miss Wanda just stood there, in my arms, and cried. She explained that they have no more money and no idea what to do next.
Endgames
The first house Hands On asked us to scout on this trip was a large camelback double shotgun that belongs to Miss Anne Pinckney, who is living in her FEMA trailer in the driveway of the home her grandfather built on A.P. Tureaud Street. As has become a very common story these days, she used her life savings to hire a contractor to repair her home, which took a couple of feet of water. The contractor did not gut the house, but used the money she gave him to install a couple of doors and windows, and then paint the first few rooms. That's basically it, and then he was gone. The wiring had not been done, the roof had not been repaired properly, the camelback portion (the rear of the house) was open to the elements, with rotten siding and framing, missing windows and doors, etc. FEMA has given her and her cousin until May 1st to vacate the trailer for good. The materials needed to actually repair the home will probably cost in the $50,000 range, and that assumes the labor is free. She has no more money of her own. Hands On no longer does these types of projects, save for their involvement in trying to match up providers with those in need. The bottom line? She is screwed. The truth is, I can see no circumstance that would result in her getting her home rebuilt. When the FEMA trailer goes away, I have no idea where she will go or what she will do.
3-1/2 years after Katrina, many flooded homes remain in post-storm condition, and time and the weather are getting to them. What might have been rebuildable/repairable structures during our first few trips down here have in many cases simply deteriorated and rotted beyond repair. Homeowners who are still waiting to resolve issues that are keeping them from getting their Road Home money continue to ask for our help. As Ann and I scouted potential projects Hands On had been asked about, in one case all we could do was to tell Miss Mary Wilson and her son (who had gutted her home himself and was attempting to shore up the foundation) the truth: her home is now almost certainly beyond repair. The roof had been tarped, but the tarp has long ago rotted in the sun and the rain, and the roof and roof frame were ruined. Inside, the water and sun had destroyed large chunks of framing. Below the floor, most foundation beams were rotted away by termites and the elements. We concluded that the only route to providing a home for her on that lot was to knock the house down and start over.
Hope has always been a constant here. Residents, despite their financial circumstances, disabilities or other challenges, have always exuded a resilience and faith that things were getting better.
When do you quit calling it Hope and start calling it Denial? Many people in this city are, in my opinion, nearing the end of the line when it comes to the possibility they might actually move back into their homes. We volunteers have ridden that tide of hope and done our work with the confidence that somehow, someway, it was all going to be OK someday. On this trip, we have seen a number of instances where it would be a lie to say that things are going to be OK. That's a hard fact to swallow. If it isn't the elements slowly hammering a structure to death, it's inept and dishonest contractors slapping some paint on it and demanding more money to continue.
If it isn't that, it's a case like that of Mr. Ronald Tonth, whose home sits on the corner of Forstall and Robertson Streets in the Lower Ninth. Mr. Tonth asked two Hands On Americorps members to come look at his place to see if we could help. They asked me to come along. Mr. Tonth has a full-time job, a wife, children, and mother-in-law that he lives with. In his spare time, he's been rebuilding his home himself. When we arrived to look at the home, I was immediately impressed with the quality and quantity of work he had already accomplished. The exterior was basically complete, and well done. When he arrived, we went inside with him to see what needed to be done. A few rooms still need sheetrock, the sheetrock that has been completed needs to have the seams sanded, there is plumbing work to be done, floors to be installed, cabinets, etc. It wasn't a tiny amount of work left, but it was all doable by volunteers with a bit of money and the proper leadership.
Mr. Tonth told us his story: He rebuilt his home on the slab of his flood-damaged home, which like many in the Lower Ninth took water all the way into the attic. His family had left before the storm arrived, but people directly across the street drowned when the floodwall broke. He had nearly completed the rebuilding, including having added a second floor to the home to accommodate his mother-in-law, when squatters caused a fire in the abandoned home immediately behind his home. Much of the work he'd already completed was destroyed by the heat and smoke of the fire that burned a few feet from his home. He hired a lawyer, and after paying the contingent fee, netted about $20,000. The State is paying rental assistance to help his family live nearby. That assistance stops for good in 4 months. This man has spent what he's got and is nearing completion, but is feeling the time pressure and the burden of worrying about whether he'll be finished before he and his family "End up on the street or whatever happens to people when the rent assistance runs out". He's paying the mortgage on his property, and can't afford to do that and pay rent.
Here's what he asked us for (his words): "Anything. Any help at all. If you could come and paint a room. That would help. If you could help install flooring. That would help. If you could sweep a floor at the end of the day. That would help. Anything at all. I'm doing this by myself because that's the only way we are going to get this done. I'm running out of time and I'm worried I'm losing my mind. It's hard to balance all this, but it's all on me and I've got to find a way."
That man has been at this non-stop since the storm, providing for his family, and spending every minute and every cent he has. As for kitchen cabinets, he has just the sink cabinet because, as he so correctly stated, "If I can get a sink hooked up, we have a kitchen for now". When I remarked that his work on the drywall was really good, and that the walls were going to look great after texture and paint, he laughed and said, "I can afford paint, but I can't afford texture". He has cut every corner he can just to find a way to move his family home in time. My heart hurts for this guy, who has done nothing but work hard to provide for his family, to bring them home after a largely man-made calamity took away every material thing they had, and another man-made calamity burned most of his work as he approached completion the first time.
Our Call to Action
There is nothing I can do, and nothing I can ask you to do, to help people like Miss Pinckney, who needs thousands of dollars and has no time. Nor is there anything we can do to help Miss Wilson, who also needs thousands of dollars to first knock down her home of 35 years and build a new one.
But, there is something we can do together for Mr. Tonth and Miss McCray, and for others like them all over this City who only need a few bucks and some donated expertise to finally get them home.
We've asked you for financial help before, and we know the last year hasn't been kind to those of us with investments and savings. But I want to reach out to you again, to ask you to help Ann and me directly help Miss McCray and Mr. Tonth and his family. These two jobs can each be easily completed with a few thousand dollars and some skilled volunteer help. These two families are very close to completion, but might not be able to get the rest of the way without help. These stories are like thousands of stories in this City so long after Katrina. If we all pitch in, we can help some of these folks get over the top and get finished.
You can contribute one of two ways: If you wish your contribution to be tax deductible, you can make your check out to Hands On New Orleans and send it to me so I can direct it to these projects. If you don't care about the tax deductibility of your contribution, you can make the check out to me personally. In the former, I will restrict the donation for materials for those specific projects. It adds a bit of bureaucracy to do it this way, but it works. If you make the check payable to me, you don't get the deduction, but I get incredible flexibility to spend when we need to, with no delays or process. Either way, I promise that your money will be used for materials, and for materials only, for Mr. Tonth, Miss McCray, or for other small projects I don't yet know about but will inevitably discover when Ann and I return for our 10th trip in April. You can choose the project you want to contribute to, if you wish, or you can leave it to me to disburse the money where I think it is best used and most needed. No matter what, I beg you to consider making a contribution, no matter the amount, and send it to me today. Hands On has a number of skilled volunteers scheduled to arrive there over the next few weeks, and the work that needs to be done is urgent. I will personally see that our money is spent for its best and highest purpose, and that we use it to move these jobs to completion as quickly and nimbly as possible.
Thank you for giving this some thought. On behalf of those your contributions will help, I am grateful for anything we can do together to help.
My love to all,
David/Dad
Postscript: On Mardi Gras, Miss Antoinette K-Doe died. Miss Antoinette was the owner and operator of the Mother In Law Lounge, the first actual rebuilding project Hands On took on. Bill was involved in that project, along with Reggie and several other true believers and early Hands On volunteers. Miss Antoinette had one of the biggest hearts in New Orleans, and the lounge was a magnet for musicians and volunteers alike. After rebuilding the lounge, Hands On enjoyed a special status, and anyone with a purple shirt was golden. We have enjoyed many a Thursday night at the lounge when it was closed but available for band rehearsals. Imagine watching a popular band practice in front of you and a dozen of your friends while you enjoyed Miss Antoinette's red beans and rice. We've had many special times with Miss Antoinette. You can read a blurb about her life and influence on us and the City in last week's Time Magazine at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1883364,00.html.
On Saturday morning after Bill arrived, we all donned our purple shirts and headed to Miss Antoinette's funeral. For those of you unfamiliar with New Orleans' funeral traditions, let me just say that Ann and I decided that, wherever we are when we pass on, we wish to be shipped immediately to New Orleans. There's a saying that New Orleans put the "fun" in "funeral". The service itself was joyful and uplifting in a way that, as you sit in attendance, it occurs to you that this is after all how Christian religions teach you to approach death. They've got it right.
Following the service (and you are going to have to forgive me now for being such a novice in the tradition), we all lined up behind the mule-drawn wagon/hearse that carried her body and walked in the Second Line. Second Lines, if I've got this right, are the loosely-assembled folks that fall in behind the formal funeral procession. It's the hangers-on, the neighbors, the folks along the way who, well, just join in and follow what looks like a parade. There's an entire brass band ahead of us just behind Miss Antoinette and we join in, picking up everyone along the way that feels the urge, some with umbrellas, some dancing, some with beers in paper bags, everyone with a sense of belonging. In Miss Antoinette's case, the procession ended at the Mother In Law Lounge, where her pallbearers lifted her casket from the carriage, and hoisted it three times into the air as we wished her home to heaven. And then the dancing continued. Miss Antoinette's father and relatives were Mardi Gras Indians, and Mardi Gras Indians from many tribes joined us in celebratory respect and love for her.
Ann and I arrived on February 19th. Once again we're staying in our friend Lana Corll's guest room and driving her pickup, and our volunteers are drinking the great coffee always provided by our pals at Batdorf & Bronson- thanks Lana and thanks Batdorf & Bronson. We are very grateful.
The Work
A couple of weeks before we arrived, we heard from our fellow volunteer Bill Goslin. He extended a business trip to Texas with a week in New Orleans before heading back to his family in upstate New York. We love working with Bill because he's a) very talented, b) very motivated, and c) is a great guy with a great heart. Our kind of fellow would-be New Orleanian. We spent a week with Bill (and Reggie on his day off) working at a couple of different sites. Bill just doesn't quit. Between the four of us, we repaired Miss Emma Pearson's home, which was full of drywall fractures that occurred because she had virtually completed the rebuilding of her Upper Ninth Ward home when she received a grant to raise the home several feet. The home got raised, and basically all drywall around the windows and doors fractured. With Ann's and Bill's skill mudding and taping, and all of our brawn sanding and painting, we knocked that job out. I went back last week with Reggie to re-hang all of the interior doors and to prepare the rest of the baseboard and trim for installation. Miss Emma and her daughter Miss Donna spent Sunday cooking an entire Sunday-Mom Meal for us, which we enjoyed with our friend and host Lana Corll.
Bill spent his week in the bunkhouse with this year's group of volunteers from the Juilliard School. You'll remember Juilliard from my entries of March 2007, when I had the honor of sharing the bunkhouse with that year's group of very talented and very inspiring students. They have come back each year with a new group, but with an incredible institutional memory of the work and what their involvement means to it. There is something very special about the Juilliard students who choose to join this annual effort in New Orleans. This year's group was no different.
Bill, Ann and I also spent the first half of our first day together in Hands On's new tool warehouse. They moved in on February 1st, but most of the tools save for rakes shovels and brooms were still not organized or available. We needed tools, so we decided to jump in and organize. By noon, we'd found and organized most of the power tools and most of the hand tools. Made our work a lot easier after that because we now knew where everything was.
That Saturday, Ann and I took a group of Jesuit Volunteer Corps members to Franklin Street to do a mini-gut and clean up for Miss Debra. In 5 hours, they had completely cleaned out all debris left behind by the storm, and had gutted damaged ceilings throughout. These volunteers are in New Orleans for a year, assigned to a variety of full-time projects, but they joined us because they wanted to help with the work we were doing. It was old-school Tyvek and respirators, and they did their work very well. Last week, Todd and I went back to secure a few doors that allow access by squatters and thieves.
In between, Ann and I headed to the Lower Ninth Ward to begin a 3-day project requested by Davida Finger of the Loyola Law Katrina Clinic. To get Miss Jeanetta Cloud's home in the Lower Ninth removed from a City-ordered Demolition List, there was a list of improvements that needed to be made to the exterior of the home. Ann and I removed rotten soffit and fascia boards one one side of the house. The next day, Reggie and I cut and primed the new material, and we then installed the new soffit. That Friday, I had a team of 5 people (Todd, Niko, and Emily from Hands On, and Niko's parents, Barb and Jerry, who were in town for a long weekend with their son). Todd and Niko installed the new fascia boards and trim, everyone painted, we repaired two damaged siding areas, and Jerry and I installed roof flashing on two sides of the house. Our work didn't rebuild the home, but we were pleased to hear last week that the court agreed that our repairs were sufficient to move Miss Jeanetta's home off the demolition list for two more months while she tries to move her Road Home application towards closing, after which she will do what she has long desired to do, which is rebuild and move home.
After Ann went home on March 12th, I spent time at the home of Miss Doretha McCray, who owns a double-shotgun on the corner of Gallier and Roman in the Upper Ninth. We weren't able to get much work done for her, but Todd, Reggie and I installed a few light fixtures and made functional a half-assed handrail Miss Doretha's contractors partially installed prior to walking off her job and leaving her high-and-dry. When Ann and I arrived to scout this home a few weeks ago, Miss McCray and her daughter Wanda showed us through the home. They paid the contractor to complete her home, and it is nearly complete except the bathrooms don't operate yet (and the tile work is so bad I can't believe anyone would have so little pride that they could call what they did "work" at all), the kitchen has cabinets but no countertops or sink, the once-beautiful hardwood floors lie un-refinished, with the gouges, scratches, paint and other damage that comes from first being flooded and then being left unprotected from construction workers and the ancillary damage they cause in the normal course of their work. Miss Wanda just stood there, in my arms, and cried. She explained that they have no more money and no idea what to do next.
Endgames
The first house Hands On asked us to scout on this trip was a large camelback double shotgun that belongs to Miss Anne Pinckney, who is living in her FEMA trailer in the driveway of the home her grandfather built on A.P. Tureaud Street. As has become a very common story these days, she used her life savings to hire a contractor to repair her home, which took a couple of feet of water. The contractor did not gut the house, but used the money she gave him to install a couple of doors and windows, and then paint the first few rooms. That's basically it, and then he was gone. The wiring had not been done, the roof had not been repaired properly, the camelback portion (the rear of the house) was open to the elements, with rotten siding and framing, missing windows and doors, etc. FEMA has given her and her cousin until May 1st to vacate the trailer for good. The materials needed to actually repair the home will probably cost in the $50,000 range, and that assumes the labor is free. She has no more money of her own. Hands On no longer does these types of projects, save for their involvement in trying to match up providers with those in need. The bottom line? She is screwed. The truth is, I can see no circumstance that would result in her getting her home rebuilt. When the FEMA trailer goes away, I have no idea where she will go or what she will do.
3-1/2 years after Katrina, many flooded homes remain in post-storm condition, and time and the weather are getting to them. What might have been rebuildable/repairable structures during our first few trips down here have in many cases simply deteriorated and rotted beyond repair. Homeowners who are still waiting to resolve issues that are keeping them from getting their Road Home money continue to ask for our help. As Ann and I scouted potential projects Hands On had been asked about, in one case all we could do was to tell Miss Mary Wilson and her son (who had gutted her home himself and was attempting to shore up the foundation) the truth: her home is now almost certainly beyond repair. The roof had been tarped, but the tarp has long ago rotted in the sun and the rain, and the roof and roof frame were ruined. Inside, the water and sun had destroyed large chunks of framing. Below the floor, most foundation beams were rotted away by termites and the elements. We concluded that the only route to providing a home for her on that lot was to knock the house down and start over.
Hope has always been a constant here. Residents, despite their financial circumstances, disabilities or other challenges, have always exuded a resilience and faith that things were getting better.
When do you quit calling it Hope and start calling it Denial? Many people in this city are, in my opinion, nearing the end of the line when it comes to the possibility they might actually move back into their homes. We volunteers have ridden that tide of hope and done our work with the confidence that somehow, someway, it was all going to be OK someday. On this trip, we have seen a number of instances where it would be a lie to say that things are going to be OK. That's a hard fact to swallow. If it isn't the elements slowly hammering a structure to death, it's inept and dishonest contractors slapping some paint on it and demanding more money to continue.
If it isn't that, it's a case like that of Mr. Ronald Tonth, whose home sits on the corner of Forstall and Robertson Streets in the Lower Ninth. Mr. Tonth asked two Hands On Americorps members to come look at his place to see if we could help. They asked me to come along. Mr. Tonth has a full-time job, a wife, children, and mother-in-law that he lives with. In his spare time, he's been rebuilding his home himself. When we arrived to look at the home, I was immediately impressed with the quality and quantity of work he had already accomplished. The exterior was basically complete, and well done. When he arrived, we went inside with him to see what needed to be done. A few rooms still need sheetrock, the sheetrock that has been completed needs to have the seams sanded, there is plumbing work to be done, floors to be installed, cabinets, etc. It wasn't a tiny amount of work left, but it was all doable by volunteers with a bit of money and the proper leadership.
Mr. Tonth told us his story: He rebuilt his home on the slab of his flood-damaged home, which like many in the Lower Ninth took water all the way into the attic. His family had left before the storm arrived, but people directly across the street drowned when the floodwall broke. He had nearly completed the rebuilding, including having added a second floor to the home to accommodate his mother-in-law, when squatters caused a fire in the abandoned home immediately behind his home. Much of the work he'd already completed was destroyed by the heat and smoke of the fire that burned a few feet from his home. He hired a lawyer, and after paying the contingent fee, netted about $20,000. The State is paying rental assistance to help his family live nearby. That assistance stops for good in 4 months. This man has spent what he's got and is nearing completion, but is feeling the time pressure and the burden of worrying about whether he'll be finished before he and his family "End up on the street or whatever happens to people when the rent assistance runs out". He's paying the mortgage on his property, and can't afford to do that and pay rent.
Here's what he asked us for (his words): "Anything. Any help at all. If you could come and paint a room. That would help. If you could help install flooring. That would help. If you could sweep a floor at the end of the day. That would help. Anything at all. I'm doing this by myself because that's the only way we are going to get this done. I'm running out of time and I'm worried I'm losing my mind. It's hard to balance all this, but it's all on me and I've got to find a way."
That man has been at this non-stop since the storm, providing for his family, and spending every minute and every cent he has. As for kitchen cabinets, he has just the sink cabinet because, as he so correctly stated, "If I can get a sink hooked up, we have a kitchen for now". When I remarked that his work on the drywall was really good, and that the walls were going to look great after texture and paint, he laughed and said, "I can afford paint, but I can't afford texture". He has cut every corner he can just to find a way to move his family home in time. My heart hurts for this guy, who has done nothing but work hard to provide for his family, to bring them home after a largely man-made calamity took away every material thing they had, and another man-made calamity burned most of his work as he approached completion the first time.
Our Call to Action
There is nothing I can do, and nothing I can ask you to do, to help people like Miss Pinckney, who needs thousands of dollars and has no time. Nor is there anything we can do to help Miss Wilson, who also needs thousands of dollars to first knock down her home of 35 years and build a new one.
But, there is something we can do together for Mr. Tonth and Miss McCray, and for others like them all over this City who only need a few bucks and some donated expertise to finally get them home.
We've asked you for financial help before, and we know the last year hasn't been kind to those of us with investments and savings. But I want to reach out to you again, to ask you to help Ann and me directly help Miss McCray and Mr. Tonth and his family. These two jobs can each be easily completed with a few thousand dollars and some skilled volunteer help. These two families are very close to completion, but might not be able to get the rest of the way without help. These stories are like thousands of stories in this City so long after Katrina. If we all pitch in, we can help some of these folks get over the top and get finished.
You can contribute one of two ways: If you wish your contribution to be tax deductible, you can make your check out to Hands On New Orleans and send it to me so I can direct it to these projects. If you don't care about the tax deductibility of your contribution, you can make the check out to me personally. In the former, I will restrict the donation for materials for those specific projects. It adds a bit of bureaucracy to do it this way, but it works. If you make the check payable to me, you don't get the deduction, but I get incredible flexibility to spend when we need to, with no delays or process. Either way, I promise that your money will be used for materials, and for materials only, for Mr. Tonth, Miss McCray, or for other small projects I don't yet know about but will inevitably discover when Ann and I return for our 10th trip in April. You can choose the project you want to contribute to, if you wish, or you can leave it to me to disburse the money where I think it is best used and most needed. No matter what, I beg you to consider making a contribution, no matter the amount, and send it to me today. Hands On has a number of skilled volunteers scheduled to arrive there over the next few weeks, and the work that needs to be done is urgent. I will personally see that our money is spent for its best and highest purpose, and that we use it to move these jobs to completion as quickly and nimbly as possible.
Thank you for giving this some thought. On behalf of those your contributions will help, I am grateful for anything we can do together to help.
My love to all,
David/Dad
Postscript: On Mardi Gras, Miss Antoinette K-Doe died. Miss Antoinette was the owner and operator of the Mother In Law Lounge, the first actual rebuilding project Hands On took on. Bill was involved in that project, along with Reggie and several other true believers and early Hands On volunteers. Miss Antoinette had one of the biggest hearts in New Orleans, and the lounge was a magnet for musicians and volunteers alike. After rebuilding the lounge, Hands On enjoyed a special status, and anyone with a purple shirt was golden. We have enjoyed many a Thursday night at the lounge when it was closed but available for band rehearsals. Imagine watching a popular band practice in front of you and a dozen of your friends while you enjoyed Miss Antoinette's red beans and rice. We've had many special times with Miss Antoinette. You can read a blurb about her life and influence on us and the City in last week's Time Magazine at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1883364,00.html.
On Saturday morning after Bill arrived, we all donned our purple shirts and headed to Miss Antoinette's funeral. For those of you unfamiliar with New Orleans' funeral traditions, let me just say that Ann and I decided that, wherever we are when we pass on, we wish to be shipped immediately to New Orleans. There's a saying that New Orleans put the "fun" in "funeral". The service itself was joyful and uplifting in a way that, as you sit in attendance, it occurs to you that this is after all how Christian religions teach you to approach death. They've got it right.
Following the service (and you are going to have to forgive me now for being such a novice in the tradition), we all lined up behind the mule-drawn wagon/hearse that carried her body and walked in the Second Line. Second Lines, if I've got this right, are the loosely-assembled folks that fall in behind the formal funeral procession. It's the hangers-on, the neighbors, the folks along the way who, well, just join in and follow what looks like a parade. There's an entire brass band ahead of us just behind Miss Antoinette and we join in, picking up everyone along the way that feels the urge, some with umbrellas, some dancing, some with beers in paper bags, everyone with a sense of belonging. In Miss Antoinette's case, the procession ended at the Mother In Law Lounge, where her pallbearers lifted her casket from the carriage, and hoisted it three times into the air as we wished her home to heaven. And then the dancing continued. Miss Antoinette's father and relatives were Mardi Gras Indians, and Mardi Gras Indians from many tribes joined us in celebratory respect and love for her.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Planting a Seed
Hello Everyone, and Greetings from Olympia,
I arrived home on November 20th, having spent the past three+ weeks on a variety of projects. While Ann and I were here this time, we got to witness the arrival of more than 1000 pounds of vegetable and flower seeds donated to the people of New Orleans by our generous friends at the Ed Hume Seed Company. This is the second year the Hume Family and their employees made a huge donation of seeds to help New Orleanians. This year, the good folks at Federal Express (thank you Lisa Daniel) donated shipping services and hauled two complete pallets of seeds from the Hume warehouse in Puyallup to the warehouse of Parkway Partners in New Orleans. Parkway Partners then used its volunteers and staff to sort the seeds by type and distribute them to community and school gardens and to other grassroots organizations like the Food and Farm Network that distribute the remainder. Flowers and vegetables grown all over this city in the past year came from Hume seeds and Hume generosity. Parkway Partners has dubbed the coming harvest the "Hume Harvest" in honor of the Hume's generosity.
People down there have noticed. Parkway Partners publishes a periodic newsletter and featured the seed donation in its latest issue. After it was published, one reader sent this along to Jeff Hume:
Trust me, Jeff, when she offers you lunch, she means it. That's the way folks are down there.
Our eighth trip to New Orleans is now in the books, and each one of them has been buoyed by the generosity of others. In addition to the Humes and all of you who have made financial donations to help our fellow American citizens in New Orleans, we've made each trip down here a bit more productive and happy with coffee donations that have been sent by our pals at Batdorf & Bronson Coffee Company here in Olympia. Thanks to Larry, Cherie, Skot and everyone else there who have made sure we've been fortified for each visit.
Happy Holidays to you and to your families. We hope 2009 brings you health, success and happiness, and that New Orleans and its people are showered with the help they so badly need 3+ years after they refused to let Katrina blow them away.
Our Love to All,
David and Ann
Dad and Mom
I arrived home on November 20th, having spent the past three+ weeks on a variety of projects. While Ann and I were here this time, we got to witness the arrival of more than 1000 pounds of vegetable and flower seeds donated to the people of New Orleans by our generous friends at the Ed Hume Seed Company. This is the second year the Hume Family and their employees made a huge donation of seeds to help New Orleanians. This year, the good folks at Federal Express (thank you Lisa Daniel) donated shipping services and hauled two complete pallets of seeds from the Hume warehouse in Puyallup to the warehouse of Parkway Partners in New Orleans. Parkway Partners then used its volunteers and staff to sort the seeds by type and distribute them to community and school gardens and to other grassroots organizations like the Food and Farm Network that distribute the remainder. Flowers and vegetables grown all over this city in the past year came from Hume seeds and Hume generosity. Parkway Partners has dubbed the coming harvest the "Hume Harvest" in honor of the Hume's generosity.
People down there have noticed. Parkway Partners publishes a periodic newsletter and featured the seed donation in its latest issue. After it was published, one reader sent this along to Jeff Hume:
Dear Hume Seeds,
I was just reading my newsletter from Parkway Partners in New Orleans, Louisiana and I saw that your company has, for two years, donated seeds to the gardeners of New Orleans.
Thank you for keeping us in mind in such a thoughtful and important way. Of the many miserable thoughts I had during our evacuation from the flooded city during August and September of 2005, one was of all the beautiful gardens here in Orleans Parish. Your generosity really will make a difference here.
Thank you.
Cordelia Cale
(If you are ever down this way drop me a line before you come. I'll buy you lunch!)
Trust me, Jeff, when she offers you lunch, she means it. That's the way folks are down there.
Our eighth trip to New Orleans is now in the books, and each one of them has been buoyed by the generosity of others. In addition to the Humes and all of you who have made financial donations to help our fellow American citizens in New Orleans, we've made each trip down here a bit more productive and happy with coffee donations that have been sent by our pals at Batdorf & Bronson Coffee Company here in Olympia. Thanks to Larry, Cherie, Skot and everyone else there who have made sure we've been fortified for each visit.
Happy Holidays to you and to your families. We hope 2009 brings you health, success and happiness, and that New Orleans and its people are showered with the help they so badly need 3+ years after they refused to let Katrina blow them away.
Our Love to All,
David and Ann
Dad and Mom
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Falling Through the Cracks
Hello Everyone, and Greetings from New Orleans,
Ann and I made a last-minute decision to make our latest trip to New Orleans. Honestly, the motivation to come now was two-fold: We wanted to be on Dryades Street in our old Central City neighborhood for Halloween to cement our tradition begun last year to give candy to the kids who live there, and Ann wanted to spend some time helping Lana Corll, our great friend and benefactor, finish setting up her finally-restored-from-Katrina-flooding first floor sewing and quilt room. We knew there would be other work for us to do while we were here, but we just didn't know for sure what it was going to be.
Awhile back, our teacher friend and New Orleans-transplant Miss Mary Ellen Bartkowski wrote us to engage us in trying to help the friend of a friend who needed some help restoring her home. Miss Mildred asked if she knew of anyone, anywhere, who might be able to help one of her fellow parishoners at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. Miss Fern is a single woman in her 80's, living alone in her single-shotgun home which she has called home for 35 years. Her home sustained a bunch of wind damage during Katrina 38 months ago, and was hammered again by Gustav in September. Miss Fern isn't a woman of means, and she is proud but in the humblest manner you can imagine. She is also without any family to call on for help. The closest kin she might have is a rumored distant cousin somewhere in Kansas.
We met her on Sunday when Miss Mary Ellen and I went to scout her home to see if there was some way we could help.
The pictures tell a little bit of the story of the current condition of her home, but, like all pictures I have sent to you from New Orleans, they are two-dimensional and don't show the true extent of the damage in any useful manner. Even if you were here in New Orleans, if you drove by her home, you would think everything is alright. Inside, you would find the truth.
In the pictures, the window you see that is blue-tarped blew out during Katrina on August 29th, 2005. The tarp is clearly not the original tarp. They don't survive in this climate for that long. Someone has replaced it for her, at least once. The black mold you see in two pictures is in her bathroom, which was open to the sky due to roof damage, which lets the rain in and feeds the mold. Unrelated to the storms, the frame of her home is so termite-damaged that it's very difficult to find places for nails to hold. As a result, there are holes in the walls, and the windows are falling out.
Miss Fern is occupying this home, and has been since she returned from her evacuation to Shreveport after Katrina. Her fellow congregants at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church have looked after her, led by Miss Mildred, the mother of Miss Mary Ellen's fellow teacher. The Archdiocese of New Orleans has suffered hard times since the storm, and the Archbishop has decided to close parishes to save money. Blessed Sacrament was closed in August. If you want to open a window on the condition of the Catholic Church down here in a seriously-Catholic stronghold, start here:
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/08/blessed_sacrament_parishioners.html
After Blessed Sacrament was closed, her parishoners were "assigned" to St. Henry's, which was itself subsequently closed two Sundays ago. So, Miss Fern's congregation is scattered to the wind now, and Miss Mildred is worried that they won't be there to help continue to keep the lights on for her, not to mention come together to help her make her home livable again. But there Miss Fern was, living in an open-to-the-elements home. And she isn't going anywhere. There is no place for her but her home as far as she is concerned. After Katrina, her home was tagged "uninhabitable" by the City inspectors. When she returned, she just took the sign down and moved back in.
In surveying her home to see what we might be able to do to help, I noticed her kitchen didn't have a stove or a microwave. She told me she had a hotplate, but it didn't work anymore. Later, I found out that her hotplate quit working a year ago. She has been eating raw vegetables and living on cold food from cans since then.
I am not making this up.
Miss Mary Ellen and I went right out and purchased a hotplate and returned to set it up for her. She said thank you, and we went outside right away so as not to make a big deal of it. We stood outside talking with Miss Mildred about the next steps, and we heard Miss Fern from inside the house say through the screen door, "Mildred: Do you want to come inside and see my new hot plate?" Later in the week, Renee' sent along an electric teapot, after seeing Miss Fern's neatly-organized tea bags next to the single pot she used for cooking and heating water.
On Monday and Tuesday, Ann, Mary Ellen, Reggie, Cobus (Renee's father, who is visiting from South Africa. By the way, his name is pronounced "Kwibbus") and I got started trying to plug up the openings in the exterior of her home, and to try to beat back some of the mold that is growing in her bathroom and her kitchen. During those two days, we were able to patch several holes, and secure one of her windows, which was getting ready to fall out of its frame due to extensive rot around it. Ann attacked the bathroom mold, and Reggie and I cleaned off her roof and one side of her home, which had been overgrown with vines. Shortly after we arrived, we discovered that she did not have any hot water, since her gas water heater had burned out some time ago. We also discovered that her only toilet was not attached to running water due to a tank leak. She flushed it with a bucket of water. Her refrigerator, which was virtually entirely covered on the outside with visible black mold, also had significant mold inside, and was only cool at best, which caused her milk to routinely spoil shortly after she purchased it. We all stopped at that point and began making phone calls to anyone we knew in the City who might be able to provide a fridge and/or a water heater.
The network of people who know each other solely because they came to New Orleans to help is pretty impressive and inspiring. Each of us knew at least one possible resource, and there we were, all on our cell phones, looking for help. On Thursday, Reggie's contact, Woody, who works for the Volunteers of America, called to say he found a nearly-new fridge at the New Orleans Recovery Project warehouse, and they were willing to part with it. On Friday, we picked it up and delivered it to Miss Fern's. It's white, it's cold, and it's hers. They also gave her a new dining table (she didn't have anything) that a church congregation in Pennsylvania had designed and constructed 100 copies of for donation to people in New Orleans who need them. Miss Fern was duly impressed with the fridge, as she commented to me "Glass shelves--I've never seen them before. And "Spillproof"? That's very nice."
Back to the house work. Miss Fern had hired a contractor years ago to do some repairs, but we can't find any. She took out a mortgage to pay for them, and we can find that. Among other things, they installed some cheap cabinets in her kitchen, and all of the upper cabinets have since fallen off the walls. Ann invested some time and love into rebuilding one of them and then properly hanging it from an interior wall, which had some unrotted studs. When she showed it to Miss Fern, and told her she could put her canned goods in it instead of stacking them on the floor, Miss Fern asked her "Will this cabinet stay on the wall?" Later, Ann found she had stacked her cans on a counter top instead. She was used to the workmanship of her contractor. She didn't yet know that Ann knew better.
During the week, we called upon other help. Bri O'Brien came with Todd and Niko, two other Hands On folks, to continue trying to clean up and repair. The frame of the house is so far gone that there are not many places you can actually attach nails or screws. The window problem was more extensive than we had earlier thought. Cobus and I devised a method for holding them in place with a two-by-four at the top and another one at the bottom. With some luck, we were able to find enough non-rotted studs to attach them to, and voila, they were saved from falling out of their openings. Ann designed a method to button-up the two openings that didn't have windows in them any longer. The tarped opening was sheeted and sealed, and the other opening was sealed up so animals and the wind could no longer get in. On Thursday, LiAnne and Bri came to lend their roof-tarping expertise to the bathroom roof, which had been open to the sky for who knows how long. Todd and Niko returned to attack the mold inside. At the end of Thursday, the work that was needed to close any openings in exterior surfaces was completed, and what mold remediation was possible had been completed. Early in the week, Miss Fern told us that many of the electric plugs in the house no longer worked. Eric Caldwell, a volunteer whenever you ask him and a builder when he needs to pay the bills, answered that call on Wednesday. As he trouble-shot the problem by tracing the wiring under the house, he nearly literally put his hand on the problem when he found burned wiring leading into the last plug in the line that worked, followed by burned wire coming out of that plug and heading to the next plug in the line. The floor beam that the wiring contacted was scorched, and the wiring itself had clearly burned down to the copper. Eric and Reggie pulled new wiring, and the problem was solved.
As of now, we are still looking for a gas water heater so we can give her hot water. I was able to fix the toilet, and that now works again. Our team killed what mold we were able to kill, although without gutting the house, getting rid of it isn't possible. We just labored to beat it back for the time being.
When we realized the house is beyond structural repair without totally rebuilding it, we shifted gears to triage repairs, and also to see if we could find an organization that might be able to provide her different housing. Lana Corll grabbed this one by the horns, and spent a good chunk of her week on the phone with various groups to seek help. At the end of the week, Davida Finger of the Loyola Law Katrina Clinic had been able to get a Catholic Charities case worker assigned to the case. We're not sure just where this is going right now, since Miss Fern told Miss Mildred this week that she had decided she was just going to stay put, even after being told her home really couldn't be repaired any more than we had been able to repair it this week. "That's alright", she said. "I've been here 35 years, and I'm alright."
Miss Fern is a clear-eyed, reasonably healthy woman in her 80's. She doesn't seem depressed, nor does she seem crazy. Further, she probably wouldn't be very happy to know I am writing to you about her. But, when you see the condition of her home, when you grasp just how close it actually is to collapsing, when you realize that there's nothing you can do to repair it short of totally rebuilding it, and in the face of all this she is placid and OK with it all, your heart can't help but hurt.
I was really proud to work with the group that threw themselves into this project. And not just showing up to work at the home. Hitting the phones, calling each other at night to keep trying to see what we had found out and what we were still trying to find out, and staying with our work until we found whatever resolution we could was the way the week went. Each person did what they could, and between us all, we accomplished a lot, although every one of us will tell you we didn't even scratch the surface of what this woman really needs to live in dignity. I've been humbled many times down here to see how little so many people in this City have and the conditions their means force them to take for granted, but Miss Fern's home topped it all.
Juxtapose this with post-election Talk Radio, which I often tune into out of a combination of wanting to hear what that side is saying to its listeners and simple morbid curiosity. On Wednesday, I heard one of these people talk in absolute certainty (as they always do) that the "Income Redistribution" our new President will ruin the country with is nothing more than taking from those of us who care enough to work and giving it to those of us who are lazy and unwilling to work. This guy had the ignorance and cruelty to suggest that poor people (every single one of them) are poor because they just don't want to work as hard as those of us with means.
I'll pass that along to Miss Fern.
My love to all,
David/Dad
Ann and I made a last-minute decision to make our latest trip to New Orleans. Honestly, the motivation to come now was two-fold: We wanted to be on Dryades Street in our old Central City neighborhood for Halloween to cement our tradition begun last year to give candy to the kids who live there, and Ann wanted to spend some time helping Lana Corll, our great friend and benefactor, finish setting up her finally-restored-from-Katrina-flooding first floor sewing and quilt room. We knew there would be other work for us to do while we were here, but we just didn't know for sure what it was going to be.
Awhile back, our teacher friend and New Orleans-transplant Miss Mary Ellen Bartkowski wrote us to engage us in trying to help the friend of a friend who needed some help restoring her home. Miss Mildred asked if she knew of anyone, anywhere, who might be able to help one of her fellow parishoners at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church. Miss Fern is a single woman in her 80's, living alone in her single-shotgun home which she has called home for 35 years. Her home sustained a bunch of wind damage during Katrina 38 months ago, and was hammered again by Gustav in September. Miss Fern isn't a woman of means, and she is proud but in the humblest manner you can imagine. She is also without any family to call on for help. The closest kin she might have is a rumored distant cousin somewhere in Kansas.
We met her on Sunday when Miss Mary Ellen and I went to scout her home to see if there was some way we could help.
The pictures tell a little bit of the story of the current condition of her home, but, like all pictures I have sent to you from New Orleans, they are two-dimensional and don't show the true extent of the damage in any useful manner. Even if you were here in New Orleans, if you drove by her home, you would think everything is alright. Inside, you would find the truth.
In the pictures, the window you see that is blue-tarped blew out during Katrina on August 29th, 2005. The tarp is clearly not the original tarp. They don't survive in this climate for that long. Someone has replaced it for her, at least once. The black mold you see in two pictures is in her bathroom, which was open to the sky due to roof damage, which lets the rain in and feeds the mold. Unrelated to the storms, the frame of her home is so termite-damaged that it's very difficult to find places for nails to hold. As a result, there are holes in the walls, and the windows are falling out.
Miss Fern is occupying this home, and has been since she returned from her evacuation to Shreveport after Katrina. Her fellow congregants at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church have looked after her, led by Miss Mildred, the mother of Miss Mary Ellen's fellow teacher. The Archdiocese of New Orleans has suffered hard times since the storm, and the Archbishop has decided to close parishes to save money. Blessed Sacrament was closed in August. If you want to open a window on the condition of the Catholic Church down here in a seriously-Catholic stronghold, start here:
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/08/blessed_sacrament_parishioners.html
After Blessed Sacrament was closed, her parishoners were "assigned" to St. Henry's, which was itself subsequently closed two Sundays ago. So, Miss Fern's congregation is scattered to the wind now, and Miss Mildred is worried that they won't be there to help continue to keep the lights on for her, not to mention come together to help her make her home livable again. But there Miss Fern was, living in an open-to-the-elements home. And she isn't going anywhere. There is no place for her but her home as far as she is concerned. After Katrina, her home was tagged "uninhabitable" by the City inspectors. When she returned, she just took the sign down and moved back in.
In surveying her home to see what we might be able to do to help, I noticed her kitchen didn't have a stove or a microwave. She told me she had a hotplate, but it didn't work anymore. Later, I found out that her hotplate quit working a year ago. She has been eating raw vegetables and living on cold food from cans since then.
I am not making this up.
Miss Mary Ellen and I went right out and purchased a hotplate and returned to set it up for her. She said thank you, and we went outside right away so as not to make a big deal of it. We stood outside talking with Miss Mildred about the next steps, and we heard Miss Fern from inside the house say through the screen door, "Mildred: Do you want to come inside and see my new hot plate?" Later in the week, Renee' sent along an electric teapot, after seeing Miss Fern's neatly-organized tea bags next to the single pot she used for cooking and heating water.
On Monday and Tuesday, Ann, Mary Ellen, Reggie, Cobus (Renee's father, who is visiting from South Africa. By the way, his name is pronounced "Kwibbus") and I got started trying to plug up the openings in the exterior of her home, and to try to beat back some of the mold that is growing in her bathroom and her kitchen. During those two days, we were able to patch several holes, and secure one of her windows, which was getting ready to fall out of its frame due to extensive rot around it. Ann attacked the bathroom mold, and Reggie and I cleaned off her roof and one side of her home, which had been overgrown with vines. Shortly after we arrived, we discovered that she did not have any hot water, since her gas water heater had burned out some time ago. We also discovered that her only toilet was not attached to running water due to a tank leak. She flushed it with a bucket of water. Her refrigerator, which was virtually entirely covered on the outside with visible black mold, also had significant mold inside, and was only cool at best, which caused her milk to routinely spoil shortly after she purchased it. We all stopped at that point and began making phone calls to anyone we knew in the City who might be able to provide a fridge and/or a water heater.
The network of people who know each other solely because they came to New Orleans to help is pretty impressive and inspiring. Each of us knew at least one possible resource, and there we were, all on our cell phones, looking for help. On Thursday, Reggie's contact, Woody, who works for the Volunteers of America, called to say he found a nearly-new fridge at the New Orleans Recovery Project warehouse, and they were willing to part with it. On Friday, we picked it up and delivered it to Miss Fern's. It's white, it's cold, and it's hers. They also gave her a new dining table (she didn't have anything) that a church congregation in Pennsylvania had designed and constructed 100 copies of for donation to people in New Orleans who need them. Miss Fern was duly impressed with the fridge, as she commented to me "Glass shelves--I've never seen them before. And "Spillproof"? That's very nice."
Back to the house work. Miss Fern had hired a contractor years ago to do some repairs, but we can't find any. She took out a mortgage to pay for them, and we can find that. Among other things, they installed some cheap cabinets in her kitchen, and all of the upper cabinets have since fallen off the walls. Ann invested some time and love into rebuilding one of them and then properly hanging it from an interior wall, which had some unrotted studs. When she showed it to Miss Fern, and told her she could put her canned goods in it instead of stacking them on the floor, Miss Fern asked her "Will this cabinet stay on the wall?" Later, Ann found she had stacked her cans on a counter top instead. She was used to the workmanship of her contractor. She didn't yet know that Ann knew better.
During the week, we called upon other help. Bri O'Brien came with Todd and Niko, two other Hands On folks, to continue trying to clean up and repair. The frame of the house is so far gone that there are not many places you can actually attach nails or screws. The window problem was more extensive than we had earlier thought. Cobus and I devised a method for holding them in place with a two-by-four at the top and another one at the bottom. With some luck, we were able to find enough non-rotted studs to attach them to, and voila, they were saved from falling out of their openings. Ann designed a method to button-up the two openings that didn't have windows in them any longer. The tarped opening was sheeted and sealed, and the other opening was sealed up so animals and the wind could no longer get in. On Thursday, LiAnne and Bri came to lend their roof-tarping expertise to the bathroom roof, which had been open to the sky for who knows how long. Todd and Niko returned to attack the mold inside. At the end of Thursday, the work that was needed to close any openings in exterior surfaces was completed, and what mold remediation was possible had been completed. Early in the week, Miss Fern told us that many of the electric plugs in the house no longer worked. Eric Caldwell, a volunteer whenever you ask him and a builder when he needs to pay the bills, answered that call on Wednesday. As he trouble-shot the problem by tracing the wiring under the house, he nearly literally put his hand on the problem when he found burned wiring leading into the last plug in the line that worked, followed by burned wire coming out of that plug and heading to the next plug in the line. The floor beam that the wiring contacted was scorched, and the wiring itself had clearly burned down to the copper. Eric and Reggie pulled new wiring, and the problem was solved.
As of now, we are still looking for a gas water heater so we can give her hot water. I was able to fix the toilet, and that now works again. Our team killed what mold we were able to kill, although without gutting the house, getting rid of it isn't possible. We just labored to beat it back for the time being.
When we realized the house is beyond structural repair without totally rebuilding it, we shifted gears to triage repairs, and also to see if we could find an organization that might be able to provide her different housing. Lana Corll grabbed this one by the horns, and spent a good chunk of her week on the phone with various groups to seek help. At the end of the week, Davida Finger of the Loyola Law Katrina Clinic had been able to get a Catholic Charities case worker assigned to the case. We're not sure just where this is going right now, since Miss Fern told Miss Mildred this week that she had decided she was just going to stay put, even after being told her home really couldn't be repaired any more than we had been able to repair it this week. "That's alright", she said. "I've been here 35 years, and I'm alright."
Miss Fern is a clear-eyed, reasonably healthy woman in her 80's. She doesn't seem depressed, nor does she seem crazy. Further, she probably wouldn't be very happy to know I am writing to you about her. But, when you see the condition of her home, when you grasp just how close it actually is to collapsing, when you realize that there's nothing you can do to repair it short of totally rebuilding it, and in the face of all this she is placid and OK with it all, your heart can't help but hurt.
I was really proud to work with the group that threw themselves into this project. And not just showing up to work at the home. Hitting the phones, calling each other at night to keep trying to see what we had found out and what we were still trying to find out, and staying with our work until we found whatever resolution we could was the way the week went. Each person did what they could, and between us all, we accomplished a lot, although every one of us will tell you we didn't even scratch the surface of what this woman really needs to live in dignity. I've been humbled many times down here to see how little so many people in this City have and the conditions their means force them to take for granted, but Miss Fern's home topped it all.
Juxtapose this with post-election Talk Radio, which I often tune into out of a combination of wanting to hear what that side is saying to its listeners and simple morbid curiosity. On Wednesday, I heard one of these people talk in absolute certainty (as they always do) that the "Income Redistribution" our new President will ruin the country with is nothing more than taking from those of us who care enough to work and giving it to those of us who are lazy and unwilling to work. This guy had the ignorance and cruelty to suggest that poor people (every single one of them) are poor because they just don't want to work as hard as those of us with means.
I'll pass that along to Miss Fern.
My love to all,
David/Dad
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Wrapping Up Our 7th Trip
Hello Everyone, and Greetings from Houston,
Ann and I are on our way home from our latest trip to New Orleans. Our last week, as has become our tradition for some reason, was a great one. After working with Reggie out in the Bayou helping with trees, we were recruited to help on a home-rebuilding project by a pal at Rebuilding Together. This organization is working in New Orleans to specifically assist elderly and disabled homeowners who do not have the resources to complete the recovery of their homes. Ann, Reggie and I went off to Miss Della's home on Louisiana Parkway Drive, in the heart of the Broadmoor neighborhood of New Orleans. Broadmoor is a very large neighborhood that organized its citizens early and fought the City back when Mayor Nagin suggested that Broadmoor be razed in its entirety and turned over to greenspace. They said thanks, but no thanks, and the area has been a web of activity ever since. Miss Della is a 70-something wheelchair-bound woman living alone in her FEMA trailer next door, and Rebuilding Together has nearly completed its work restoring her home. The three of us were asked to tile her kitchen floor, so we cleaned the subfloor, installed the Hardibacker underlayment, and then laid about half the tile that day. On Friday, Ann and I went back and were joined by two volunteers, Maggie and Mary. Neither had laid tile floors before, so we showed them what we knew and then helped them finish it. By 1pm, we were completely finished, and the result is a kitchen floor ready for grout. This was a really good gig for Ann, Reggie, and me, and it reminded us of so many projects we've worked on with Hands On. Hands On too is gearing up to do more of these types of projects now that they are an independent affiliate of the Hands On Network. Having both of these great organizations scaring up these projects means we'll be busier than ever on our next trip down there in February. The chance to help someone get back into their home 3 years after the storm isn't nearly as rare as we hoped it would be, but there it is, and we're going to keep coming back as long as we can find this work in this wonderful city we call our Home Away From Home.
My Love to All,
David/Dad
P.S. Update on the Tool Fund: For those of you who gave so generously to the Tool Fund, I promised to keep you up to date on our progress towards finding a matching sponsor. I'm very happy to report that Kaiser Permanente not only agreed to match the $10,000 you gave, they matched it 3-for-1 with a $30,000 gift to Hands On New Orleans. Thanks to all of you, from Kathie and Al Faccinto, who got this whole effort started with a very generous seed donation, to all of you who followed and got us to our $10,000 starting goal, and finally to our pals at Kaiser Permanente, who saw what we do with those tools, did it with us, and backed up their efforts and commitment with such a generous matching donation. Tools and volunteers are the lifeblood of our effort to rebuild this very American city of ours, and I'm very grateful to all of you who have joined this effort. Thanks again.
Ann and I are on our way home from our latest trip to New Orleans. Our last week, as has become our tradition for some reason, was a great one. After working with Reggie out in the Bayou helping with trees, we were recruited to help on a home-rebuilding project by a pal at Rebuilding Together. This organization is working in New Orleans to specifically assist elderly and disabled homeowners who do not have the resources to complete the recovery of their homes. Ann, Reggie and I went off to Miss Della's home on Louisiana Parkway Drive, in the heart of the Broadmoor neighborhood of New Orleans. Broadmoor is a very large neighborhood that organized its citizens early and fought the City back when Mayor Nagin suggested that Broadmoor be razed in its entirety and turned over to greenspace. They said thanks, but no thanks, and the area has been a web of activity ever since. Miss Della is a 70-something wheelchair-bound woman living alone in her FEMA trailer next door, and Rebuilding Together has nearly completed its work restoring her home. The three of us were asked to tile her kitchen floor, so we cleaned the subfloor, installed the Hardibacker underlayment, and then laid about half the tile that day. On Friday, Ann and I went back and were joined by two volunteers, Maggie and Mary. Neither had laid tile floors before, so we showed them what we knew and then helped them finish it. By 1pm, we were completely finished, and the result is a kitchen floor ready for grout. This was a really good gig for Ann, Reggie, and me, and it reminded us of so many projects we've worked on with Hands On. Hands On too is gearing up to do more of these types of projects now that they are an independent affiliate of the Hands On Network. Having both of these great organizations scaring up these projects means we'll be busier than ever on our next trip down there in February. The chance to help someone get back into their home 3 years after the storm isn't nearly as rare as we hoped it would be, but there it is, and we're going to keep coming back as long as we can find this work in this wonderful city we call our Home Away From Home.
My Love to All,
David/Dad
P.S. Update on the Tool Fund: For those of you who gave so generously to the Tool Fund, I promised to keep you up to date on our progress towards finding a matching sponsor. I'm very happy to report that Kaiser Permanente not only agreed to match the $10,000 you gave, they matched it 3-for-1 with a $30,000 gift to Hands On New Orleans. Thanks to all of you, from Kathie and Al Faccinto, who got this whole effort started with a very generous seed donation, to all of you who followed and got us to our $10,000 starting goal, and finally to our pals at Kaiser Permanente, who saw what we do with those tools, did it with us, and backed up their efforts and commitment with such a generous matching donation. Tools and volunteers are the lifeblood of our effort to rebuild this very American city of ours, and I'm very grateful to all of you who have joined this effort. Thanks again.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Road Tripping in the Bayou
Hello Everyone, and Greetings from New Orleans and Places Beyond,
We've been on an odyssey around the state to cut trees wherever we were sent. Ike hit the Houston/Galveston area directly, but it was such a huge storm that all of the lower parishes of Louisiana were inundated by the tidal surge and the winds that brought it inland. As information seeped in, there were organizations and individuals far-and-wide that collected names of neighbors who needed help. Thousands of trees down on homes, across driveways, in the way of powerline repairs, and so forth. Ann and I took Valerie, a young volunteer who found us via the State's volunteer hotline, and we headed off to Lafayette with our gloves, water, gasoline, and chainsaws. We were dispatched by United Way Acadiana, and worked usually as a team of three at individual homes in the area. Boy, oh boy, is that area Mosquito Country these days. They were plentiful, big, and aggressive. All of that wet ground made for one big mosquito bog across the entire region.
At the end of the week, we were sent to the Houma/Raceland area to do the same tree removal work. Reggie joined us for these days, and we cleared a pretty big list of mostly older folks who didn't have the ability to do this work themselves.
I'll tell you, there's no American poverty like Deep South American poverty. We met some really nice folks out in the rural areas we have visited over the past couple of weeks, and we've been humbled by how little so many of those people have. Every stop along the way, though, people were welcoming, tripping over themselves to make sure we were fed and watered. On our first evening in Lafayette, we worked until dusk cutting trees out of Miss Edna's yard. Miss Edna is an 82-year old widow who had been gathering branches by herself, and I asked her to please let us do it. As the sun went down, we hadn't finished, and I knew she was waiting for us to leave so she could come back out and continue working. I told her that we needed to quit because it isn't very safe to operate a chain saw in the dusk hours, but that we weren't going to leave if she was going to come back out and drag branches herself. She laughed because she knew she'd been busted. We went home, and came back the next morning with a few AmeriCorps members to finish. She smiled at me when we arrived, and told me "I waited. I told you I would. I almost couldn't stand it, you kids working so hard while I didn't. But I waited, Baby."
I love it when women call me Baby.
On a job in Breaux Bridge, we jumped out of the truck and began unloading our saws. The woman we were helping saw Ann and I each grab our saws, and she was taken aback. Her words, exactly: "A lady with a chain saw?" I just smiled. Yep, that's a lady alright, but that lady is Ann. What a laugh we had later. People just don't know until they've worked with Ann.
Back to New Orleans for the rest of our third week here. More later.
My love to all,
David/Dad
We've been on an odyssey around the state to cut trees wherever we were sent. Ike hit the Houston/Galveston area directly, but it was such a huge storm that all of the lower parishes of Louisiana were inundated by the tidal surge and the winds that brought it inland. As information seeped in, there were organizations and individuals far-and-wide that collected names of neighbors who needed help. Thousands of trees down on homes, across driveways, in the way of powerline repairs, and so forth. Ann and I took Valerie, a young volunteer who found us via the State's volunteer hotline, and we headed off to Lafayette with our gloves, water, gasoline, and chainsaws. We were dispatched by United Way Acadiana, and worked usually as a team of three at individual homes in the area. Boy, oh boy, is that area Mosquito Country these days. They were plentiful, big, and aggressive. All of that wet ground made for one big mosquito bog across the entire region.
At the end of the week, we were sent to the Houma/Raceland area to do the same tree removal work. Reggie joined us for these days, and we cleared a pretty big list of mostly older folks who didn't have the ability to do this work themselves.
I'll tell you, there's no American poverty like Deep South American poverty. We met some really nice folks out in the rural areas we have visited over the past couple of weeks, and we've been humbled by how little so many of those people have. Every stop along the way, though, people were welcoming, tripping over themselves to make sure we were fed and watered. On our first evening in Lafayette, we worked until dusk cutting trees out of Miss Edna's yard. Miss Edna is an 82-year old widow who had been gathering branches by herself, and I asked her to please let us do it. As the sun went down, we hadn't finished, and I knew she was waiting for us to leave so she could come back out and continue working. I told her that we needed to quit because it isn't very safe to operate a chain saw in the dusk hours, but that we weren't going to leave if she was going to come back out and drag branches herself. She laughed because she knew she'd been busted. We went home, and came back the next morning with a few AmeriCorps members to finish. She smiled at me when we arrived, and told me "I waited. I told you I would. I almost couldn't stand it, you kids working so hard while I didn't. But I waited, Baby."
I love it when women call me Baby.
On a job in Breaux Bridge, we jumped out of the truck and began unloading our saws. The woman we were helping saw Ann and I each grab our saws, and she was taken aback. Her words, exactly: "A lady with a chain saw?" I just smiled. Yep, that's a lady alright, but that lady is Ann. What a laugh we had later. People just don't know until they've worked with Ann.
Back to New Orleans for the rest of our third week here. More later.
My love to all,
David/Dad
Monday, September 8, 2008
Gustav Hits Hard, But Largely Spares New Orleans
Hello Everyone, and Greetings from New Orleans,
Gustav hit Baton Rouge pretty hard. We watched it from inside our makeshift bunkhouse. 95 mph winds trimmed the trees there with fury. The power was off in most of the city and outlying areas for a couple of days, after which it came back on in small areas, and slowly at that. Baton Rouge was largely spared by Katrina, so its 100-year old trees hadn't had a recent trimming. As a result, they came down by the thousands in Baton Rouge and all across the lower part of the State, and made a real mess. Add to that the fact that not only did residents of Baton Rouge not evacuate (no one expected the storm to hit them very hard at all), many people from lower parishes, including Orleans, evacuated themselves TO Baton Rouge. This made for a traffic nightmare as one or two gas stations came back to life, and everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) hit the streets to fill up (or try to).
After helping to set up a Search and Rescue database of qualified volunteers for the government folks we were working for, Ann and I went out with Nic and Todd and a chainsaw to remove a tree from a home outside town. On Thursday, Ann and I were sent on a road trip to scout the Houma area, which is located about 50 miles southwest of New Orleans. That area was really hammered, and since New Orleans was largely spared significant damage, Hands On may be setting up some volunteer effort down there. Then, we returned to New Orleans. There's a lot of debris to clear, but the floodwalls all held, and the city was coming back to life pretty quickly. Some power was already back on, and the utility crews worked furiously through the weekend to keep it coming back on. While it's an understatement to say that the people of New Orleans are significantly relieved, it's equally true that they are weary and broke. The evacuation was pretty impressive--1.9 million people participated (said by many in the media to be the largest evacuation in American history), and it went pretty smoothly until the very end, as people tried to return home. Ray Nagin kept New Orleans closed while neighboring parishes reopened, and Nagin had the NOPD stop cars on I-10 as they tried to enter Orleans parish on their way through to Jefferson Parish next door). That caused a shitstorm that blemished what was otherwise a very well planned and extremely well executed evacuation. People from Orleans Parish were told to turn around and wait another day. Kids crying, parents dead tired, out of money, out of gas, out of food, out of water, out of patience. Nagin gave up a couple of hours later, and the repopulation went on without a hitch after that.
Now, with Hurricane Ike on its way into the Gulf, with New Orleans again inside the probability arc, people are worried. Ann and I can't help but wonder if many of them simply aren't going to leave if another evacuation is called for this week. After all, they already spent a bunch of money they didn't have to get out for Gustav, then Gustav fortunately turned out to hit New Orleans with a much smaller punch than expected (hammering nearly everyone else in the lower part of the State). It just seems like human nature might tell them to go ahead and stay. Whether they do or whether they don't, here's hoping Ike turns around and heads off aimlessly to the sea.
We're off to Lafayette with a chain saw crew today, and planning to be there all this week. Assuming Ike doesn't chase us out, we ought to be plenty busy helping those folks dig out.
My love to all,
David/Dad
Gustav hit Baton Rouge pretty hard. We watched it from inside our makeshift bunkhouse. 95 mph winds trimmed the trees there with fury. The power was off in most of the city and outlying areas for a couple of days, after which it came back on in small areas, and slowly at that. Baton Rouge was largely spared by Katrina, so its 100-year old trees hadn't had a recent trimming. As a result, they came down by the thousands in Baton Rouge and all across the lower part of the State, and made a real mess. Add to that the fact that not only did residents of Baton Rouge not evacuate (no one expected the storm to hit them very hard at all), many people from lower parishes, including Orleans, evacuated themselves TO Baton Rouge. This made for a traffic nightmare as one or two gas stations came back to life, and everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) hit the streets to fill up (or try to).
After helping to set up a Search and Rescue database of qualified volunteers for the government folks we were working for, Ann and I went out with Nic and Todd and a chainsaw to remove a tree from a home outside town. On Thursday, Ann and I were sent on a road trip to scout the Houma area, which is located about 50 miles southwest of New Orleans. That area was really hammered, and since New Orleans was largely spared significant damage, Hands On may be setting up some volunteer effort down there. Then, we returned to New Orleans. There's a lot of debris to clear, but the floodwalls all held, and the city was coming back to life pretty quickly. Some power was already back on, and the utility crews worked furiously through the weekend to keep it coming back on. While it's an understatement to say that the people of New Orleans are significantly relieved, it's equally true that they are weary and broke. The evacuation was pretty impressive--1.9 million people participated (said by many in the media to be the largest evacuation in American history), and it went pretty smoothly until the very end, as people tried to return home. Ray Nagin kept New Orleans closed while neighboring parishes reopened, and Nagin had the NOPD stop cars on I-10 as they tried to enter Orleans parish on their way through to Jefferson Parish next door). That caused a shitstorm that blemished what was otherwise a very well planned and extremely well executed evacuation. People from Orleans Parish were told to turn around and wait another day. Kids crying, parents dead tired, out of money, out of gas, out of food, out of water, out of patience. Nagin gave up a couple of hours later, and the repopulation went on without a hitch after that.
Now, with Hurricane Ike on its way into the Gulf, with New Orleans again inside the probability arc, people are worried. Ann and I can't help but wonder if many of them simply aren't going to leave if another evacuation is called for this week. After all, they already spent a bunch of money they didn't have to get out for Gustav, then Gustav fortunately turned out to hit New Orleans with a much smaller punch than expected (hammering nearly everyone else in the lower part of the State). It just seems like human nature might tell them to go ahead and stay. Whether they do or whether they don't, here's hoping Ike turns around and heads off aimlessly to the sea.
We're off to Lafayette with a chain saw crew today, and planning to be there all this week. Assuming Ike doesn't chase us out, we ought to be plenty busy helping those folks dig out.
My love to all,
David/Dad
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Gustav Day 2
Hello Everyone, and Greetings from Baton Rouge,
Just a quick update on what's going on down here. Ann and I flew to Atlanta on Sunday (as close as we could get) to help with the initial response to Gustav. John Jowers, our pal who formerly worked for Hands On Network in Atlanta, and his pal Sherrie met us at the airport, and we all hit the road at 11:30 pm for the drive to Baton Rouge. Road Trip!
We arrived in Baton Rouge at sun-up Monday morning, and met Kellie Bentz, Hands On New Orleans' Executive Director, at GOHSEP, the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Planning Center here in Baton Rouge. As the storm moved into the Baton Rouge area Monday afternoon, we hunkered down at our makeshift bunkhouse at a local rehab center. On Monday evening, we magically caught up with Lana Corll's pickup truck, which she has so generously loaned us time and time again. This time, it was already in Baton Rouge, having been borrowed by a friend of hers for last weekend's LSU football game. We then went back to GOHSEP to begin the process of vetting potential search and rescue teams who have called to volunteer their services. We'll be on that until they are all deployed.
We're fine up here. A big blow came through here for sure, with lots of trees and signs blown down, and a bunch of related property damage, but other than no electricity anywhere here (except for GOHSEP, which has giant generators running all over campus), Baton Rouge is OK. We're just starting to get detailed reports from parishes in Southern Louisiana, but things look far worse down there. Cajun Country got hit pretty hard. The levees in New Orleans all held up.
More later.
My love to all,
David/Dad
Just a quick update on what's going on down here. Ann and I flew to Atlanta on Sunday (as close as we could get) to help with the initial response to Gustav. John Jowers, our pal who formerly worked for Hands On Network in Atlanta, and his pal Sherrie met us at the airport, and we all hit the road at 11:30 pm for the drive to Baton Rouge. Road Trip!
We arrived in Baton Rouge at sun-up Monday morning, and met Kellie Bentz, Hands On New Orleans' Executive Director, at GOHSEP, the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Planning Center here in Baton Rouge. As the storm moved into the Baton Rouge area Monday afternoon, we hunkered down at our makeshift bunkhouse at a local rehab center. On Monday evening, we magically caught up with Lana Corll's pickup truck, which she has so generously loaned us time and time again. This time, it was already in Baton Rouge, having been borrowed by a friend of hers for last weekend's LSU football game. We then went back to GOHSEP to begin the process of vetting potential search and rescue teams who have called to volunteer their services. We'll be on that until they are all deployed.
We're fine up here. A big blow came through here for sure, with lots of trees and signs blown down, and a bunch of related property damage, but other than no electricity anywhere here (except for GOHSEP, which has giant generators running all over campus), Baton Rouge is OK. We're just starting to get detailed reports from parishes in Southern Louisiana, but things look far worse down there. Cajun Country got hit pretty hard. The levees in New Orleans all held up.
More later.
My love to all,
David/Dad
Monday, June 23, 2008
I Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans
Hello Everyone, and Greetings from Olympia,
Our last week of this trip to New Orleans was our best one.
Davida Finger of the Loyola Law School Katrina Clinic hooked Ann and me up with a family in Gentilly who used their insurance money to rebuild the 5-foot-flooded first floor of their home, but ran out of money before they could finish the upstairs. Miss Ray and Mr Harold Bellanger are in their 80's, and live with their daughter and her son and 18 year old nephew, who just had a kidney removed. The Road Home money hasn't trickled down to Miss Ray and Mr Harold yet, so they all have been scraping wallpaper off the upstairs walls by hand, all of which were damaged when the winds tore off part of their roof. Our son Kevan kicked in a very generous chunk of money for materials, and Ann and I got to lead a team of volunteers to finish the wallpaper removal, texture the walls in preparation for paint, and level and repair the sagging subfloor in the upstairs hall. Ann and I spent Monday pulling up and disposing of the carpet and pad in the hallway, and got a look at the subfloor underneath. It had a high peak that ran down the entire center of the hall, and had several very squishy spots at the sides. On Tuesday, Reggie and several other volunteers joined us to get to work. While Ann and I shimmed and strengthened the floor, they all set about to remove the wallpaper in the other rooms. Miss Ray and Mr Harold's daughter Tania and her son Reggie had spent a lot of the previous week removing all of the wallpaper in the hall so it would be done when we got there to repair the floor. We purchased a wallpaper-removing chemical and special scrapers, and took it along with safety gear to them the week before, and they've been at it ever since. We spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday with this work, and went home Wednesday with the floor completely leveled and set with underlayment in preparation for new flooring, and the walls clear of wallpaper and ready to texture. On Wednesday, we were joined by Eric and Steve, two old Hands On volunteers who now live and work full-time in New Orleans. They provided the expertise to skim-coat the walls to make them smooth in preparation for texture. On Thursday, Nic Bonsell came along with us to show us how to use a texture gun and how to "knock down" the texture once it was applied. I asked a new regular volunteer, Bill, to learn the texture gun, since he was planning on spending the entire summer here to work. By 2pm, we were all finished, and the walls are now ready for paint.
On Friday, Ann and I went back to complete little stuff. We reinstalled the door trim we had to remove in the hall, installed transition strips between the hall and the rooms, and generally cleaned up. We also got to give Miss Ray and Mr Harold a $200 Home Depot gift card as a jump-start on their paint and flooring, compliments of our son Kevan. I had the honor of bringing along a gallon of white paint to finally cover up the orange "X" that was painted on the front of their house. I asked Miss Ray and Mr Harold if they would like to help, and they each took their turn covering up the X that was painted by searchers days after the storm. There we were, 1020 days after the X was painted, finally putting it to rest. It took 3 coats of paint, but I wasn't packing up until none of it could be seen on that home.
For the record, here's what the X read, clockwise from the top:
9-5 (Searched on 9/5/05)
- (No hazards located)
0 (No bodies found inside)
AE (Team that searched)
Now the front of their home just says "4532" (their house number). A great way to end our 6th trip down here. Mr Harold told me that they had been contacted by lots of neighbors before they returned, asking if they were coming back. All of those neighbors said that if Miss Ray and Mr Harold weren't returning, neither were they. The Bellanger home is that home on Feliciana Street that serves as the magnet for others who weren't sure they would return. Today, about half of the homes in their vicinity are either occupied or in the process of being repaired. Lots of Xs are still painted on the outsides of homes here in the shadow of the London Avenue Canal. Hopefully, that white spot on the outside of Miss Ray and Mr Harold's home will serve as another reminder to their neighbors that they too can come home again.
Mary Ellen Bartkowski and Reggie Derman have continued, for some reason unexplainable to us, to open their home to us when we visit, and to treat us like family. We are so grateful to them for their generosity and love. It seems so long ago that the three of us worked together on Miss Rose's siding way back in March of 2007, which led to Mary Ellen leaving her Chicago home to teach at a New Orleans public school.
I've found myself nostalgic in many ways during this past trip. Ann and I invited our pals for a last-evening beer at Igor's, our old hangout on St. Charles Avenue, near our beloved old bunkhouse at the First Street United Methodist Church. I looked around the tables that evening and realized that many of the truest friends I've had in my life were there with me. We saved a seat for Chandra, but Boston was too far to come. Even so, I thought of her that evening, in the humidity of another hot day in that wonderful city in the Deep South, enjoying stories and laughs with Ann and our pals, and I felt that familiar sense that I was home.
Catfish is still $39.99 for a 15-pound box at the Chicken Mart (which still doesn't sell chicken), Gold Teeth are still 2 for $150, Six Flags is still closed, the streets are still ruined, but the city looks better now than it did when we visited in February, when it looked better than it did when we visited in November. Each time we visit, we notice some new signs of life. One time it's the St. Charles streetcar, now fully operational along its entire course, another time it's Charles Brown's home in the Lower Ninth, now occupied and FEMA-trailer free.
Last week, it was a visit by Reggie and me to see whatever happened to the New Orleans East Super Gut that he led in March of 2007 (you can read about it in my 3/18/07 entry "Back Home in New Orleans"). We drove out to New Orleans East to see if we could find it and see what, if anything, had been done to it since we gutted it 15 months ago. The first photo shows our gut pile outside the home, and the second shows what we found last week. Both Reggie and I were pretty taken by the transformation.
And still another time it's a homeowner banging away on a once-decrepit, burned shell of a home on Jackson Street, its new framing now nearly complete, and its wrought-iron circular staircase, once hanging by itself in the air and connected to nothing but the ground, now being used by him and his crew as they rebuild his home. The sign on that stairwell has said, for as long as I've been coming here "I AM Coming Home. I WILL Rebuild".
I now believe it.
My love to all.
David/Dad
Our last week of this trip to New Orleans was our best one.
Davida Finger of the Loyola Law School Katrina Clinic hooked Ann and me up with a family in Gentilly who used their insurance money to rebuild the 5-foot-flooded first floor of their home, but ran out of money before they could finish the upstairs. Miss Ray and Mr Harold Bellanger are in their 80's, and live with their daughter and her son and 18 year old nephew, who just had a kidney removed. The Road Home money hasn't trickled down to Miss Ray and Mr Harold yet, so they all have been scraping wallpaper off the upstairs walls by hand, all of which were damaged when the winds tore off part of their roof. Our son Kevan kicked in a very generous chunk of money for materials, and Ann and I got to lead a team of volunteers to finish the wallpaper removal, texture the walls in preparation for paint, and level and repair the sagging subfloor in the upstairs hall. Ann and I spent Monday pulling up and disposing of the carpet and pad in the hallway, and got a look at the subfloor underneath. It had a high peak that ran down the entire center of the hall, and had several very squishy spots at the sides. On Tuesday, Reggie and several other volunteers joined us to get to work. While Ann and I shimmed and strengthened the floor, they all set about to remove the wallpaper in the other rooms. Miss Ray and Mr Harold's daughter Tania and her son Reggie had spent a lot of the previous week removing all of the wallpaper in the hall so it would be done when we got there to repair the floor. We purchased a wallpaper-removing chemical and special scrapers, and took it along with safety gear to them the week before, and they've been at it ever since. We spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday with this work, and went home Wednesday with the floor completely leveled and set with underlayment in preparation for new flooring, and the walls clear of wallpaper and ready to texture. On Wednesday, we were joined by Eric and Steve, two old Hands On volunteers who now live and work full-time in New Orleans. They provided the expertise to skim-coat the walls to make them smooth in preparation for texture. On Thursday, Nic Bonsell came along with us to show us how to use a texture gun and how to "knock down" the texture once it was applied. I asked a new regular volunteer, Bill, to learn the texture gun, since he was planning on spending the entire summer here to work. By 2pm, we were all finished, and the walls are now ready for paint.
On Friday, Ann and I went back to complete little stuff. We reinstalled the door trim we had to remove in the hall, installed transition strips between the hall and the rooms, and generally cleaned up. We also got to give Miss Ray and Mr Harold a $200 Home Depot gift card as a jump-start on their paint and flooring, compliments of our son Kevan. I had the honor of bringing along a gallon of white paint to finally cover up the orange "X" that was painted on the front of their house. I asked Miss Ray and Mr Harold if they would like to help, and they each took their turn covering up the X that was painted by searchers days after the storm. There we were, 1020 days after the X was painted, finally putting it to rest. It took 3 coats of paint, but I wasn't packing up until none of it could be seen on that home.
For the record, here's what the X read, clockwise from the top:
9-5 (Searched on 9/5/05)
- (No hazards located)
0 (No bodies found inside)
AE (Team that searched)
Now the front of their home just says "4532" (their house number). A great way to end our 6th trip down here. Mr Harold told me that they had been contacted by lots of neighbors before they returned, asking if they were coming back. All of those neighbors said that if Miss Ray and Mr Harold weren't returning, neither were they. The Bellanger home is that home on Feliciana Street that serves as the magnet for others who weren't sure they would return. Today, about half of the homes in their vicinity are either occupied or in the process of being repaired. Lots of Xs are still painted on the outsides of homes here in the shadow of the London Avenue Canal. Hopefully, that white spot on the outside of Miss Ray and Mr Harold's home will serve as another reminder to their neighbors that they too can come home again.
Mary Ellen Bartkowski and Reggie Derman have continued, for some reason unexplainable to us, to open their home to us when we visit, and to treat us like family. We are so grateful to them for their generosity and love. It seems so long ago that the three of us worked together on Miss Rose's siding way back in March of 2007, which led to Mary Ellen leaving her Chicago home to teach at a New Orleans public school.
I've found myself nostalgic in many ways during this past trip. Ann and I invited our pals for a last-evening beer at Igor's, our old hangout on St. Charles Avenue, near our beloved old bunkhouse at the First Street United Methodist Church. I looked around the tables that evening and realized that many of the truest friends I've had in my life were there with me. We saved a seat for Chandra, but Boston was too far to come. Even so, I thought of her that evening, in the humidity of another hot day in that wonderful city in the Deep South, enjoying stories and laughs with Ann and our pals, and I felt that familiar sense that I was home.
Catfish is still $39.99 for a 15-pound box at the Chicken Mart (which still doesn't sell chicken), Gold Teeth are still 2 for $150, Six Flags is still closed, the streets are still ruined, but the city looks better now than it did when we visited in February, when it looked better than it did when we visited in November. Each time we visit, we notice some new signs of life. One time it's the St. Charles streetcar, now fully operational along its entire course, another time it's Charles Brown's home in the Lower Ninth, now occupied and FEMA-trailer free.
Last week, it was a visit by Reggie and me to see whatever happened to the New Orleans East Super Gut that he led in March of 2007 (you can read about it in my 3/18/07 entry "Back Home in New Orleans"). We drove out to New Orleans East to see if we could find it and see what, if anything, had been done to it since we gutted it 15 months ago. The first photo shows our gut pile outside the home, and the second shows what we found last week. Both Reggie and I were pretty taken by the transformation.And still another time it's a homeowner banging away on a once-decrepit, burned shell of a home on Jackson Street, its new framing now nearly complete, and its wrought-iron circular staircase, once hanging by itself in the air and connected to nothing but the ground, now being used by him and his crew as they rebuild his home. The sign on that stairwell has said, for as long as I've been coming here "I AM Coming Home. I WILL Rebuild".
I now believe it.
My love to all.
David/Dad
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Hot Town. Summer in the City.
Hello Everyone, and Greetings from New Orleans,
After completing the Sarah T. Reed High School project, I got to work trying to help Hands On get legs under its rebuilding program. They are currently busy becoming an independent Hands On affiliate, after these past 2+ years as a project of Hands On Network. Becoming an independent 501(c)3, finding your own money for operations, building a local board of directors, and so forth is a full-time job in itself, all the while trying to keep hordes of volunteers busy and productive. Hands On has found itself concentrating on corporate projects lately, i.e., working with companies who want to bring money and people to New Orleans to help, usually sandwiched between a convention or meeting that brings them to New Orleans. Ann and I are doing what we can to help them also hang on to the on-going daily construction jobs that we have seen make a difference in the lives of the people we have worked for. We are beginning to partner with a volunteer group in Central City that has a backlog of projects but not enough help. We're doing what we can to cement a good partnership with them (www.UnitedSaints.org) in order to ensure a regular supply of manageable Katrina-restoration projects for our daily jobs' board. Spending a week or two at many of these homes results in a huge step forward for the families that live in them.
On Memorial Day, I got to go to the New Orleans Zephyr's baseball game with Mary Ellen and her class. About half of our kids got baseballs that day, and we had a really good time.
The next day, Ann arrived. We spent our first day together over at Sarah T. Reed High School performing a minor modification to the picnic tables we built. After that, we spent a couple of days with our pal Miss Peggy Severe, hanging the final curtain rods, pulling a phone line, and, using money provided by Jan Matzelle and Sherry O'Connor, my loving 1st Grade teachers at L.P. Brown Elementary School in Olympia, mixing and pouring lots of concrete to fill a large hole which sat squarely in the center of her now-FEMA-trailerless driveway.
On Saturday, May 31st, we went with Nic and Bri and a group of Credit Suisse folks from New York to paint the exterior of a new family-owned restaurant in Gentilly. It's appropriately named Cousins, and 10 seconds of observation would tell you why. Family members, young and old, filled the place as they prepared a lunch of good old fashioned Creole cooking for us grateful volunteers. Kyle and his family leased this space and have been doing the renovations themselves in preparation for their opening on June 16th. We painted the entire exterior and built several benches and planter boxes to spruce up the outside. As we wrapped up, Kyle pulled us all together, made daiquiris and served beers, and broke down crying as he thanked us for coming together with his family to help them start this business that he hopes will sustain them all. Once in awhile when I tell someone we are helping a business, people ask if that seems OK to do, i.e., helping a for-profit business instead of a needy homeowner. I tell them that when we help a small business get back on its feet, we are helping a needy homeowner. Small businesses are a big part of the lifeblood of this city, and are often the best opportunity for people to restore their economic lives (not to mention the economy of the City). Rebuilding homes is my first love here, but jobs are the most important thing for these people. Doesn't really matter, after all, if we've fixed their home if they can't afford to turn the lights back on. Seeing Kyle up there in front of us, this big gregarious man, unable to hold back his tears for the help we provided underscored all of that for me. As this City continues its long slog back to whatever they will someday call Normalcy, it's becoming easier and easier to take the pace of recovery for granted, to see things getting slowly better. Then a Kyle comes along and reminds us all that every sign of recovery comes with a human face, and every day between now and recovery is one more day since the storm took away everything except their optimism and their resilience. You can find dignity all over among these ruins down here, and today his name was Kyle.
We got to experience a bit of New Orleans nostalgia when Boston Cares sent people down for their fourth trip to help. Ann ran into them for the first time when she was here in November 2006, and they've just kept coming back. It was my first opportunity to meet them, and they were as Ann promised: hard-working and lots of fun. We got to buy them a round at Henry's while we watched the Celtics send the Pistons home. Go Celtics, and thanks to Boston Cares for their determination, commitment, and good humor. Hurry back, and let us know when you are coming.
We finally got to see Davida Finger, our lawyer pal from the Loyola Law Katrina Clinic. She's been very busy lately, having become the sole lawyer in charge of all cases heading for court, after her partner moved back to Lafayette and left her alone. Every parish down here now has a deadline for getting rid of their FEMA trailers, and those deadlines are making life busy for Davida and scary for some residents for whom the FEMA trailer is the only alternative to homelessness. Yes, there are some trailer residents who just need a push to get going, but there are many hardcore poor, disabled, and elderly who just aren't able to rebuild without more time and help. Davida is out there fighting every day for them. Thanks, Counselor.
In between projects, we've been working on the first floor of Lana Corll's home, which took two feet of water when the levees gave way. Lana also works at Loyola Law, and has been a constant source of local color, Southern hospitality, and friendship. Oh, yeah--she also tosses us the keys to her Ford F-150 as soon as we arrive, so we have wheels to get where we need to go. Once we got started on her place, Ann did her usual creative work tiling the new bathroom floor, and Reggie and I insulated and installed drywall in the large living area. Lana hired a local guy and his crew to do a bunch of other work, and it's coming together pretty quickly now. It's never a surprise for me to see Ann take what could have been a pedestrian, vanilla tile job and turn it into her canvas. It was surprising though, and a little scary when I realized I'm actually getting pretty good at drywall. I always thought I'd be able to say I just wasn't very good enough at it, and should find other projects to contribute to. Can't use that excuse anymore.
Since we're on a Loyola University theme here, let me also add that we've become pals with Philip Frohnmayer, a Professor of Music at Loyola. Phil found us one day when I was wearing my Oregon Ducks Basketball T-shirt. Phil is Dave Frohnmayer's brother, who is the President of the University of Oregon. Phil and his wife have been down here many years now, and he's become another one of our New Orleans friends.
As has become their custom, our pals at Batdorf and Bronson Coffee Roasters again made sure that we had their great coffee in our coffee pots down here for our entire stay. I can tell you how much our volunteers appreciate really good coffee in the morning, and I can also tell you how much I appreciate that familiar smell in the morning. Having a bit of home here with us in New Orleans makes me feel like we're all in this together. Which we are.
My love to all,
David/Dad
After completing the Sarah T. Reed High School project, I got to work trying to help Hands On get legs under its rebuilding program. They are currently busy becoming an independent Hands On affiliate, after these past 2+ years as a project of Hands On Network. Becoming an independent 501(c)3, finding your own money for operations, building a local board of directors, and so forth is a full-time job in itself, all the while trying to keep hordes of volunteers busy and productive. Hands On has found itself concentrating on corporate projects lately, i.e., working with companies who want to bring money and people to New Orleans to help, usually sandwiched between a convention or meeting that brings them to New Orleans. Ann and I are doing what we can to help them also hang on to the on-going daily construction jobs that we have seen make a difference in the lives of the people we have worked for. We are beginning to partner with a volunteer group in Central City that has a backlog of projects but not enough help. We're doing what we can to cement a good partnership with them (www.UnitedSaints.org) in order to ensure a regular supply of manageable Katrina-restoration projects for our daily jobs' board. Spending a week or two at many of these homes results in a huge step forward for the families that live in them.
On Memorial Day, I got to go to the New Orleans Zephyr's baseball game with Mary Ellen and her class. About half of our kids got baseballs that day, and we had a really good time.
The next day, Ann arrived. We spent our first day together over at Sarah T. Reed High School performing a minor modification to the picnic tables we built. After that, we spent a couple of days with our pal Miss Peggy Severe, hanging the final curtain rods, pulling a phone line, and, using money provided by Jan Matzelle and Sherry O'Connor, my loving 1st Grade teachers at L.P. Brown Elementary School in Olympia, mixing and pouring lots of concrete to fill a large hole which sat squarely in the center of her now-FEMA-trailerless driveway.
On Saturday, May 31st, we went with Nic and Bri and a group of Credit Suisse folks from New York to paint the exterior of a new family-owned restaurant in Gentilly. It's appropriately named Cousins, and 10 seconds of observation would tell you why. Family members, young and old, filled the place as they prepared a lunch of good old fashioned Creole cooking for us grateful volunteers. Kyle and his family leased this space and have been doing the renovations themselves in preparation for their opening on June 16th. We painted the entire exterior and built several benches and planter boxes to spruce up the outside. As we wrapped up, Kyle pulled us all together, made daiquiris and served beers, and broke down crying as he thanked us for coming together with his family to help them start this business that he hopes will sustain them all. Once in awhile when I tell someone we are helping a business, people ask if that seems OK to do, i.e., helping a for-profit business instead of a needy homeowner. I tell them that when we help a small business get back on its feet, we are helping a needy homeowner. Small businesses are a big part of the lifeblood of this city, and are often the best opportunity for people to restore their economic lives (not to mention the economy of the City). Rebuilding homes is my first love here, but jobs are the most important thing for these people. Doesn't really matter, after all, if we've fixed their home if they can't afford to turn the lights back on. Seeing Kyle up there in front of us, this big gregarious man, unable to hold back his tears for the help we provided underscored all of that for me. As this City continues its long slog back to whatever they will someday call Normalcy, it's becoming easier and easier to take the pace of recovery for granted, to see things getting slowly better. Then a Kyle comes along and reminds us all that every sign of recovery comes with a human face, and every day between now and recovery is one more day since the storm took away everything except their optimism and their resilience. You can find dignity all over among these ruins down here, and today his name was Kyle.
We got to experience a bit of New Orleans nostalgia when Boston Cares sent people down for their fourth trip to help. Ann ran into them for the first time when she was here in November 2006, and they've just kept coming back. It was my first opportunity to meet them, and they were as Ann promised: hard-working and lots of fun. We got to buy them a round at Henry's while we watched the Celtics send the Pistons home. Go Celtics, and thanks to Boston Cares for their determination, commitment, and good humor. Hurry back, and let us know when you are coming.
We finally got to see Davida Finger, our lawyer pal from the Loyola Law Katrina Clinic. She's been very busy lately, having become the sole lawyer in charge of all cases heading for court, after her partner moved back to Lafayette and left her alone. Every parish down here now has a deadline for getting rid of their FEMA trailers, and those deadlines are making life busy for Davida and scary for some residents for whom the FEMA trailer is the only alternative to homelessness. Yes, there are some trailer residents who just need a push to get going, but there are many hardcore poor, disabled, and elderly who just aren't able to rebuild without more time and help. Davida is out there fighting every day for them. Thanks, Counselor.
In between projects, we've been working on the first floor of Lana Corll's home, which took two feet of water when the levees gave way. Lana also works at Loyola Law, and has been a constant source of local color, Southern hospitality, and friendship. Oh, yeah--she also tosses us the keys to her Ford F-150 as soon as we arrive, so we have wheels to get where we need to go. Once we got started on her place, Ann did her usual creative work tiling the new bathroom floor, and Reggie and I insulated and installed drywall in the large living area. Lana hired a local guy and his crew to do a bunch of other work, and it's coming together pretty quickly now. It's never a surprise for me to see Ann take what could have been a pedestrian, vanilla tile job and turn it into her canvas. It was surprising though, and a little scary when I realized I'm actually getting pretty good at drywall. I always thought I'd be able to say I just wasn't very good enough at it, and should find other projects to contribute to. Can't use that excuse anymore.
Since we're on a Loyola University theme here, let me also add that we've become pals with Philip Frohnmayer, a Professor of Music at Loyola. Phil found us one day when I was wearing my Oregon Ducks Basketball T-shirt. Phil is Dave Frohnmayer's brother, who is the President of the University of Oregon. Phil and his wife have been down here many years now, and he's become another one of our New Orleans friends.
As has become their custom, our pals at Batdorf and Bronson Coffee Roasters again made sure that we had their great coffee in our coffee pots down here for our entire stay. I can tell you how much our volunteers appreciate really good coffee in the morning, and I can also tell you how much I appreciate that familiar smell in the morning. Having a bit of home here with us in New Orleans makes me feel like we're all in this together. Which we are.
My love to all,
David/Dad
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
An Oasis Rises in New Orleans East
Hello Everyone, and Greetings from New Orleans,
I arrived here on Tuesday, May 6th, having come three weeks earlier than Ann because I had been asked to share leadership of a greenspace beautification project at Sarah T. Reed Senior High School in New Orleans East. We got involved in this project thanks to funding provided by Cable Cares, the charitable foundation associated with the cable TV trade group, who was in town for their convention. As you will see from the pictures, the school is probably 10-15 years old, but there was pretty much no vegetation on the site save for grass and overgrown or dead trees. When you add the post-apocalyptic bleakness that is found throughout New Orleans East, it's pretty difficult to look anywhere and not be constantly reminded of Katrina. While the school itself took no water during the storm, it sustained wind-related damage and a good deal of vandalism after the storm. You can't see any evidence of either as you look at the school today.
New Orleans East was created 40 or 50 years ago from reclaimed swamp land, and was settled quickly by middle-class families escaping the inner city. The majority of the homes out there are brick-frame, and the place, if you can imagine it before the storm, was tidy and well-cared for. The storm trashed the entire region, which is about half as big as New Orleans proper. Today, nearly three years after the storm, much of it is an overgrown wasteland. Six Flags has a large theme park out there, and it sits empty and alone among the dead trees, its sign still saying "Closed for Storm". The area has thousands of trees that died, and that view is the predominant image you see as you drive to Sarah T. Reed. Pockets of homes have been rebuilt and are occupied, and entire neighborhoods, shopping centers, and strip malls sit empty and ruined. None of the infrastructure or buildings out there are very old, and to see so much of it abandoned or hiding amidst dead or overgrown trees and bushes is unsettling and eerie.
But Sarah T. Reed is alive and kicking.
When I arrived, Tim had completed the budget for the project, had specified and ordered all of the plants, trees, and flowers, soil, gravel, and paving stones. He quite nicely diagrammed the areas we were to attack, right down to which plant went where in what quantities. All I had to do was direct the work itself. The plan was for 100 volunteers to do the bulk of the work on Saturday, with another 75 or so to come in for two-three hours on Sunday to wrap it up and present it to the school. Prior to the weekend project, Reggie, several Americorps NCCC members and I invested 5 days of hard labor to prepare the site and set the table for the weekend work. To do these large service projects successfully, a lot of prep work has to be completed in time to work the kinks out of the process and to leave a manageable quantity of work for the one-day-only volunteers. We set the first three rows of paving stones around the perimeters of the raised-beds after working very hard to dig trenches and level footings. 1500 of these 40 lb blocks were moved into place, 1 by 1, and my small team installed 1000 of them, leaving the last two rows for the weekend warriors.
My team leaders for the Saturday full workday were the 10 members of one of our current Americorps NCCC teams. During the week, Mike, Laura, Aurelia, Olivia, and Kerry killed themselves on site to complete the prep work. On Thursday, Laura then led a team that pre-cut about one thousand board-feet of lumber in one day to create the components for 6 picnic tables and 4 garbage can surrounds for the courtyard. I really dropped the ball on cutting day by forgetting to take photos, because it was really something to see. The day started with intense thunderstorms that began around 2 am. The rains came, too, and by sunrise, it was abundantly clear that our day's worth of lumber cutting wasn't going to happen in the yard next to the tool shed. But, that work had to be done that day, and the rains were not predicted to let up until after midnight. Somewhere around 9 am, it occurred to us that the dining hall in the bunkhouse was plenty big enough to accommodate the saw, the workers, and the lumber. A few quick calls to seek permission from the right people, and we were on our way. Laura and Aurelia went right to it, Douglas and Mike jumped in to ferry lumber, and they went to the races. That was the day I realized this NCCC team was special. There was no question about quitting on time. When Kerry's work on a different project was done for the day, she jumped in as well, and they worked until 7:15 that evening, with every piece of lumber cut, sorted, re-checked for quality, and taken back to the yard. The saw was removed, the tarps that caught any loose sawdust (virtually none after another NCCC member who was watching us set up suggested we duct-tape a shop vac hose to the saw's exhaust and run the vac when we were cutting) were pulled down from the walls and picked up off the floor, folded and put away, the entire dining hall was swept, the tables were put back in place, and they left only when the dining hall looked like we had never been in there. We were lucky because dinner was being held in another location that day, so we were able to work until we were finished. It was a sight to behold, and I watched that team come together that day as teammates and leaders.
On Friday, Mike and Olivia spent the day ferrying tools to the school, organizing and counting the plants, and making sure all was ready for Saturday. Once Saturday came, we were ready, and all there at 7:30 to take two hours to get organized, assign the individual project areas to the team leads, and be ready for the arrival of the volunteers. Cable Cares sent about 40 that day, Sarah T. Reed sent about 40 staff and students, and 20 volunteers from Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania who had spent the week working other projects joined us for the day. During opening remarks, I asked all of the volunteers to mix themselves up, to find someone in the crowd they had never met, and to stand there with them. I then filled the work groups with these new friends, and sent 'em off to work. Those 100 volunteers, along with our 11 team leaders, including Mary Ellen Bartkowski, the transplanted teacher I've spoken about in past posts, and the entire NCCC team, including Adam, Risa, Lindsey and Erin, basically finished the entire project in one day. 1500 bedding plants, over 100 bushes and trees, 30 yards of drainage gravel and soil, 500 paving blocks, 6 picnic tables, 4 garbage can surrounds--all finished. As teams completed their areas, they moved to other projects that needed help, and we invented a couple of other projects we didn't think we'd have time to include in the original plan. They knocked them all out. We had a couple of large tree stumps next to one side of the gym that were supposed to have been removed on Friday by a stump grinder, but the rain kept him from that work, so I told Dave, our guy in that area, to just skip it because the grinder was coming Monday, and we'd landscape that area later. Nope, said Dave. He took 'em both out by hand, and we finished that area on Saturday as well. Everything swept clean, all tools recovered and hauled back to the bunkhouse. It was a very good day, to say the least. The volunteers and our leaders really had a lot of fun while they attacked this work with fury.
A team from DIY Network, led by Wynn Pastor, the star of Trading Spaces, flew in on Friday and came to do a tile mosaic (which includes a hand-cut tile Sarah T. Reed logo) on the wall of the courtyard. They were a really fun group that did a very cool job that added a lot of color and character to the courtyard, and their enthusiasm, good humor, and lack of star pretense added to the good vibes of the day. They came back the next day, and took it on themselves to repair a very cool, but very damaged New Orleans-themed tile mosaic that laid neglected in one of the parking islands. They not only repaired it, they moved it to a prominent place on a slope against the school, built and planted another raised bed with surplus blocks and flowers, and finished the whole thing in time for closing remarks.
All that was left for the rest of us on Sunday were tasks that couldn't be accomplished on Saturday. We repainted 300' of red fire lane curb in front of the school (which was done barn-raising style, when I lined up every one of our 75 Sunday Cable Cares volunteers, had them stand at arms-length to each other along the entire length of the curb, and then paint the space in front of them. We did it in about 10 minutes, and people loved the process). Mary Ellen's team stained the picnic tables and garbage can surrounds that spent the afternoon and evening drying out after construction on Saturday, another team swept and washed down the courtyard, and another one still moved the unused soil out of the parking lot. Our team leaders for Sunday (in addition to Mary Ellen, who burned her entire weekend for us) were Hands On staff working on their day off. We knocked all of this work out in two hours. When we left, the transformation was something to see. I went back first thing Monday morning to see the reaction, and it alone made the work worthwhile.
One of the coolest things I've ever seen here in New Orleans happened during this project. As Tim walked me around the grounds to familiarize me with the project right after I arrived, we stopped in the courtyard to look at the three very large planter boxes that were overgrown with weeds. Our plan included weeding all three of them, trimming the trees up, and planting them with flowers and shrubs. Unbeknownst to us, the Special Ed kids and their teachers, whose classrooms are right next to the courtyard, decided on their own to do one of the planters themselves. The teachers spent their own money to buy flowers, and the entire group transformed one of those planters themselves that same day. The next day, when I was looking around campus trying to get my mind around the project, one of the teachers asked me to help her carry a 5 gallon bucket that was full of water out to the courtyard. When I took it out there, I saw their work for the first time. It was done, and they were now out there to water their new area. I went right out and bought a hose and a hose faucet key for them so they wouldn't have to lug water from the cafeteria anymore. On Saturday, we left them more plants and shrubs that they wanted to plant themselves in "their area". I then asked them if they would take the responsibility for watering and caring for all three areas, and that's exactly what they are doing now.
That kind of stuff will keep you coming back for more work down here, let me tell you. It's no secret to y'all how much I love this city and this work, but nothing tops seeing the people you are working to help take your idea and extend it with their own sweat and pride. When that happens, anything is possible.
My love to you all.
David/Dad
I arrived here on Tuesday, May 6th, having come three weeks earlier than Ann because I had been asked to share leadership of a greenspace beautification project at Sarah T. Reed Senior High School in New Orleans East. We got involved in this project thanks to funding provided by Cable Cares, the charitable foundation associated with the cable TV trade group, who was in town for their convention. As you will see from the pictures, the school is probably 10-15 years old, but there was pretty much no vegetation on the site save for grass and overgrown or dead trees. When you add the post-apocalyptic bleakness that is found throughout New Orleans East, it's pretty difficult to look anywhere and not be constantly reminded of Katrina. While the school itself took no water during the storm, it sustained wind-related damage and a good deal of vandalism after the storm. You can't see any evidence of either as you look at the school today.
New Orleans East was created 40 or 50 years ago from reclaimed swamp land, and was settled quickly by middle-class families escaping the inner city. The majority of the homes out there are brick-frame, and the place, if you can imagine it before the storm, was tidy and well-cared for. The storm trashed the entire region, which is about half as big as New Orleans proper. Today, nearly three years after the storm, much of it is an overgrown wasteland. Six Flags has a large theme park out there, and it sits empty and alone among the dead trees, its sign still saying "Closed for Storm". The area has thousands of trees that died, and that view is the predominant image you see as you drive to Sarah T. Reed. Pockets of homes have been rebuilt and are occupied, and entire neighborhoods, shopping centers, and strip malls sit empty and ruined. None of the infrastructure or buildings out there are very old, and to see so much of it abandoned or hiding amidst dead or overgrown trees and bushes is unsettling and eerie.
But Sarah T. Reed is alive and kicking.
When I arrived, Tim had completed the budget for the project, had specified and ordered all of the plants, trees, and flowers, soil, gravel, and paving stones. He quite nicely diagrammed the areas we were to attack, right down to which plant went where in what quantities. All I had to do was direct the work itself. The plan was for 100 volunteers to do the bulk of the work on Saturday, with another 75 or so to come in for two-three hours on Sunday to wrap it up and present it to the school. Prior to the weekend project, Reggie, several Americorps NCCC members and I invested 5 days of hard labor to prepare the site and set the table for the weekend work. To do these large service projects successfully, a lot of prep work has to be completed in time to work the kinks out of the process and to leave a manageable quantity of work for the one-day-only volunteers. We set the first three rows of paving stones around the perimeters of the raised-beds after working very hard to dig trenches and level footings. 1500 of these 40 lb blocks were moved into place, 1 by 1, and my small team installed 1000 of them, leaving the last two rows for the weekend warriors.
My team leaders for the Saturday full workday were the 10 members of one of our current Americorps NCCC teams. During the week, Mike, Laura, Aurelia, Olivia, and Kerry killed themselves on site to complete the prep work. On Thursday, Laura then led a team that pre-cut about one thousand board-feet of lumber in one day to create the components for 6 picnic tables and 4 garbage can surrounds for the courtyard. I really dropped the ball on cutting day by forgetting to take photos, because it was really something to see. The day started with intense thunderstorms that began around 2 am. The rains came, too, and by sunrise, it was abundantly clear that our day's worth of lumber cutting wasn't going to happen in the yard next to the tool shed. But, that work had to be done that day, and the rains were not predicted to let up until after midnight. Somewhere around 9 am, it occurred to us that the dining hall in the bunkhouse was plenty big enough to accommodate the saw, the workers, and the lumber. A few quick calls to seek permission from the right people, and we were on our way. Laura and Aurelia went right to it, Douglas and Mike jumped in to ferry lumber, and they went to the races. That was the day I realized this NCCC team was special. There was no question about quitting on time. When Kerry's work on a different project was done for the day, she jumped in as well, and they worked until 7:15 that evening, with every piece of lumber cut, sorted, re-checked for quality, and taken back to the yard. The saw was removed, the tarps that caught any loose sawdust (virtually none after another NCCC member who was watching us set up suggested we duct-tape a shop vac hose to the saw's exhaust and run the vac when we were cutting) were pulled down from the walls and picked up off the floor, folded and put away, the entire dining hall was swept, the tables were put back in place, and they left only when the dining hall looked like we had never been in there. We were lucky because dinner was being held in another location that day, so we were able to work until we were finished. It was a sight to behold, and I watched that team come together that day as teammates and leaders.
On Friday, Mike and Olivia spent the day ferrying tools to the school, organizing and counting the plants, and making sure all was ready for Saturday. Once Saturday came, we were ready, and all there at 7:30 to take two hours to get organized, assign the individual project areas to the team leads, and be ready for the arrival of the volunteers. Cable Cares sent about 40 that day, Sarah T. Reed sent about 40 staff and students, and 20 volunteers from Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania who had spent the week working other projects joined us for the day. During opening remarks, I asked all of the volunteers to mix themselves up, to find someone in the crowd they had never met, and to stand there with them. I then filled the work groups with these new friends, and sent 'em off to work. Those 100 volunteers, along with our 11 team leaders, including Mary Ellen Bartkowski, the transplanted teacher I've spoken about in past posts, and the entire NCCC team, including Adam, Risa, Lindsey and Erin, basically finished the entire project in one day. 1500 bedding plants, over 100 bushes and trees, 30 yards of drainage gravel and soil, 500 paving blocks, 6 picnic tables, 4 garbage can surrounds--all finished. As teams completed their areas, they moved to other projects that needed help, and we invented a couple of other projects we didn't think we'd have time to include in the original plan. They knocked them all out. We had a couple of large tree stumps next to one side of the gym that were supposed to have been removed on Friday by a stump grinder, but the rain kept him from that work, so I told Dave, our guy in that area, to just skip it because the grinder was coming Monday, and we'd landscape that area later. Nope, said Dave. He took 'em both out by hand, and we finished that area on Saturday as well. Everything swept clean, all tools recovered and hauled back to the bunkhouse. It was a very good day, to say the least. The volunteers and our leaders really had a lot of fun while they attacked this work with fury.
A team from DIY Network, led by Wynn Pastor, the star of Trading Spaces, flew in on Friday and came to do a tile mosaic (which includes a hand-cut tile Sarah T. Reed logo) on the wall of the courtyard. They were a really fun group that did a very cool job that added a lot of color and character to the courtyard, and their enthusiasm, good humor, and lack of star pretense added to the good vibes of the day. They came back the next day, and took it on themselves to repair a very cool, but very damaged New Orleans-themed tile mosaic that laid neglected in one of the parking islands. They not only repaired it, they moved it to a prominent place on a slope against the school, built and planted another raised bed with surplus blocks and flowers, and finished the whole thing in time for closing remarks.
All that was left for the rest of us on Sunday were tasks that couldn't be accomplished on Saturday. We repainted 300' of red fire lane curb in front of the school (which was done barn-raising style, when I lined up every one of our 75 Sunday Cable Cares volunteers, had them stand at arms-length to each other along the entire length of the curb, and then paint the space in front of them. We did it in about 10 minutes, and people loved the process). Mary Ellen's team stained the picnic tables and garbage can surrounds that spent the afternoon and evening drying out after construction on Saturday, another team swept and washed down the courtyard, and another one still moved the unused soil out of the parking lot. Our team leaders for Sunday (in addition to Mary Ellen, who burned her entire weekend for us) were Hands On staff working on their day off. We knocked all of this work out in two hours. When we left, the transformation was something to see. I went back first thing Monday morning to see the reaction, and it alone made the work worthwhile.
One of the coolest things I've ever seen here in New Orleans happened during this project. As Tim walked me around the grounds to familiarize me with the project right after I arrived, we stopped in the courtyard to look at the three very large planter boxes that were overgrown with weeds. Our plan included weeding all three of them, trimming the trees up, and planting them with flowers and shrubs. Unbeknownst to us, the Special Ed kids and their teachers, whose classrooms are right next to the courtyard, decided on their own to do one of the planters themselves. The teachers spent their own money to buy flowers, and the entire group transformed one of those planters themselves that same day. The next day, when I was looking around campus trying to get my mind around the project, one of the teachers asked me to help her carry a 5 gallon bucket that was full of water out to the courtyard. When I took it out there, I saw their work for the first time. It was done, and they were now out there to water their new area. I went right out and bought a hose and a hose faucet key for them so they wouldn't have to lug water from the cafeteria anymore. On Saturday, we left them more plants and shrubs that they wanted to plant themselves in "their area". I then asked them if they would take the responsibility for watering and caring for all three areas, and that's exactly what they are doing now.
That kind of stuff will keep you coming back for more work down here, let me tell you. It's no secret to y'all how much I love this city and this work, but nothing tops seeing the people you are working to help take your idea and extend it with their own sweat and pride. When that happens, anything is possible.
My love to you all.
David/Dad
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