All,

After returning from our TCC trip to NOLA I felt the need to stay connected to TCC. Specifically, how to help the kids at TCC. As a result, I contact Volunteer Coordinator Sandy Brown. We've had a couple of phone conversations and email exchanges to share our ideas. A summary of a call Sandy and I had earlier this week appears below. These aren't all of our ideas, just the ones that seem to have the most meaning and benefit for the TCC kids.

So far, Gina Fried and Annette Lawson (CDT Education Director) are on board to help, but we NEED MORE PEOPLE! Do you want to participate in any of these efforts? If so, email or call me (857-222-7895) and we'll talk about how to get you involved.

******summary email******

TCC has a variety of programs for different age groups:

1. After-school program for elementary school kids K-12 years old
2. Youth Group (8-13 years) and Teen Youth Group (13-18)
3. Pure Hearts: girls 13-18 (ongoing) and boys 13-18 (starting up)
4. Homework Help & 1:1 Mentoring (any age group)
5. Summer Camp (25-30 kids, K-12 years old). This summer's camp with have a health and fitness emphasis. Their wish list is: jump ropes, exercise balls, kick balls, basketballs, soccer balls and goals, a volleyball net, tennis balls, and racquets
6. Sleepaway Camps: Jr High camp in MS; High School in TX
7. Crescent City Classic (road race sponsored by TCC): Youth Groups

In our conversation, we had these brainstorms:

• Books (not as meaningful for TCC kids; not make as much impact)
• Penpals for the after-school kids
• Bookbags with school supplies
• Sports equipment for the summer camp
• Crescent City Classic on April 11 (sponsors)

As we agreed sponsoring runners for the Crescent City Classic is a great first step. Send me the sponsorship letter, info on the race, etc. I'll contact people and see what we can do to raise some funds.

Let me talk with Annette and Gina about the penpals, bookbags, and sports equipment. You and I can use email to stay in touch over the next few weeks. Then we all can talk again by phone to discuss more detailed plans.

Tim

On Home

Reflection by Nechama Katz on our NOLA Trip, Presented at Temple Hillel B'nai Torah, Shabbat, March 6, 2009

Your Home. Hearth. Safe Haven. Your Domain. Your Comfort. Your Center.

Imagine that it was all washed out in a moment and you had to leave all you own behind, rescue your family and flee for your life.

After that, what would you do?

When I was in New Orleans, this was the question that confronted me.

One Option: Don't Come Back. Make A New Life Elsewhere

• We met a woman in the Holy Cross Historic neighborhood. 18,000 people used to live there. 3600 have returned.
• One of our projects was to canvass in our own neighborhood, called Hollygrove, to see who still needed help with rebuilding. The project’s goal is to catalog every house in the neighborhood. Every day we would talk to people who were rebuilding their homes, who could point to house after house on the block with stories of, “He hasn’t come back…She hasn’t rebuilt….Nobody knows what’s happening with that house.” In every block, there are so many people missing. They just haven’t come back. People are living with major holes in their community. They have so much pride in their homes, but they are living next to boarded-up houses, homes with toppled-in roofs, homes with crumbled walls, empty houses filled with mold.
• In the Lower Ninth ward, right near where the 17th St. Levee broke, it is clear why they haven’t come back: On a typical city block, which used to be densely populated, now you might see just one house standing. One house on the entire block. The rest of the block is vacant lots—no rubble, no nothing, just foundations of houses surrounded by grass. This was a neighborhood of modest homes, modest incomes, so these people typically would have poured all their resources into their homes. Without their houses, where are they living? Where have they gone?

Another option, and what we were there for: To Rebuild

At the Holy Cross Project, a green rebuilding project, we saw a banner made by children. Some of the sayings:
"Rebuilding Piece by Peace"
"Rebuild New Orleans Back to Life"
"Smile Now, Cry Later"

One of the children wrote a poem on the banner:

"After Katrina New Orleans was a tragedy
But we don’t let it stay raggedy
We are rebuilding houses and parks
So everyone can come home instead of staying apart.
The goal is to rebuild our city and keep it safe
For the kids that like to play
To make New Orleans a good place to live
All we need is to help and give
Now New Orleans is getting back on track
So I hope that everyone can come back."

These children speak of the powerful pull of home and of community. In Hollygrove, Margalit and I and the others met many people who have rebuilt, and more who are in the process. They gutted out their homes, they re-sided the exterior, and now they are working on the inside, living in trailers. Or, more common, they have worked on the inside and maybe half of it is livable now, but the outside still has mold marks and bears the spray painted X’s left by the rescuers right after Katrina, when they checked every house, looking for bodies. These houses are surrounded by abandoned homes, homes with boarded-up windows and high weeds, houses with the roof or walls partly crumbling in.

My cousins live in New Orleans. One cousin’s house was right near a levee, and his first floor was destroyed. He had to gut it out. He remodeled and rebuilt, right on the spot. (His sister told me that she would not have made that decision. She wouldn't rebuild there. She lives on higher ground.) My impression is that those of means who decided to return—and my cousins are comfortably middle class—for the most part have rebuilt or are well into rebuilding and are putting their lives back together. We spent most of our time working with people of more modest means, and for them, the rebuilding is far from over. They’ve lost most of their assets in their homes, yet they still have to pay their bills, including their mortgages! There is a huge problem in New Orleans of contractor fraud. The government reimbursements for the damage is non-existent in many cases, and when people do get it, it only comes in $15,000 increments, so it is hard to fix up your whole house without assurance of where the money will come from.

So why do they rebuild?

Perhaps because it is all that they had.

Perhaps it is pride – pride of self, pride of place.

They love their city.

Margalit and I saw a placard that was stuck in the ground in front of many toppled-down buildings. It said:

“I am coming home!
"I will rebuild!
"I am New Orleans!”

Perhaps you rebuild because of the powerful pull of your home, your community.

Your home is you.

You have to wonder, what would you do in the situation?

One of our projects was to help paint a house being built by our organization for a much beloved local reverend who lived in our neighborhood. Hollygrove is a working-class neighborhood of small one-story houses set close together on small lots. The Rev, as he is called, had suffered a fire in his home, a modest one-story like the others, not long before Katrina. He remodeled the entire place and then, just months later, Katrina came through and destroyed his home. He’d been busy helping everyone else in the community, but finally it was time to build his home. He got matched up with some architecture students, who designed him the house of his dreams, an experimental 3-story structure with many green features, banks of windows, multiple porches, an open layout, and a very modern feeling. The home has been framed and the core fixtures have been installed. Our job was to paint all the framing. Remember, this is an open-layout home, so all the interior posts and beams will show. When we got there, the instructions were to do an exacting faux-style wash, painting with one hand and wiping it down with the other, to create a very specific look and feel in the home. At first I was surprised. “What?! Did I come all this way to build a dream home? Hey, if I have time to do faux paint jobs…what about my house?!” Then I heard the Rev’s story, and then I got to understanding what it means to have your house washed away.

So there was my lesson about the power of home and the power of rebuilding: That some people survive by looking to the future and believing that there are always new possibilities. I listened very carefully to those who could see the opportunity not just to re-build, but to build better, even as they mourned the tragedy—those with something to look forward to, those who believe that they can see a better future. The Rev isn’t trying to erect a shed to live in temporarily, for an emergency. He is trying to create a home that he can thrive in for decades to come…for the rest of his life. The power of home is that it is yours, that it expresses who you are today, and that it houses your dreams. I ended up feeling privileged to have the opportunity to enter into this man’s life over my one week in New Orleans and, through my labor, to help make the rest of his life possible.

I think it was he who gave me the gift.

A life-changing experience

Our trip to New Orleans was profoundly moving to me on many levels. In a few words...a life-changing experience. I remember when we first met as a group and were asked "What are you expecting to get out of this trip?" This was my reply: "I have no expectations. I want to witness the destruction with my own eyes and to help people in any way that I can." All of us, adults and teens, did help in so many ways. People who know me know that I can sometimes speak and write in paragraphs not in mere sentences. But, rather than writing about my experiences for hours I wanted to share a few moments of when I was moved almost beyond words. For me, this is a humbling experience that doesn't happen often.

Surveying. This job didn't seem that exciting on the face of it. Get some maps, hit the streets with digital cameras and clipboards, take a few photos, complete a checklist...you're done! But, what was so amazing and palpable was making personal connections with complete strangers. When I canvassed one day with Alex we were talking about what seemed to be a brand-new home and a shed out back with a caved-in roof and blown-out windows. As we were talking a ~70'sish-year-old man (I can't remember his name) came down the driveway and said "Mornin'...what are you boys up to?" The tone of his voice was friendly, warm, and welcoming. He told us his story...growing up in the neighborhood two streets away, moving to and buying his home, raising a family, having his home wiped out by the storm, rebuilt by one of his contractor sons & his friends. We listened attentively and just let him speak. I felt blessed that he would allow himself to share. his life story on the street...stranger to stranger...the minutes sped by. "What happened to the shed?" I asked. "Oh, that got beat up in the storm too. I'm not going to touch it. It's a dang 'ole thing just like me. I told my boy not to touch it. He listen to me." Damn straight. I wouldn't touch it either. No need.

Vendredi Gras. We were invited to a reform shul for Kabbalat Shabbat, a potluck, and parades. After a wonderful service and dinner (featuring the best brisket and BBQ sauce I've ever eaten), we went outside. To our delight, three parades were ending up on St. Charles Street, the front door of the shul. At the start, the CDT and HBT adults mostly stayed behind a chain link fence. The floats that went by were AMAZING! I've walked in or attended Gay Pride in Boston, NYC, and San Francisco but these floats blew them away! The colors, artistry, and humor were UNBELIEVABLE! But I couldn't stay fenced in...I hit the street. Just a few feet away I felt the excitement and energy immediately. We screamed, yelled, and pleaded with krewe members to throw us beads, or the big prizes: doubloons, medallions, and stuffed animals. At one point an unofficial float went by...the members had no masks. A 30's-ish woman was in the back, dressed all in black. I caught her eye and pointed to some white beads sitting across my forehead. She smiled, winked, and pointed to her forehead. She'd clearly seen me. She reached down to get something. I started to run after the truck. She handed me a stuffed Easter Bunny. I felt an immediate rush of adrenaline. The connection to this woman was electric; I felt it throughout my entire body. I can't imagine what my face and body must have looked like, possessed I'm sure. I ran back to the CDT crowd to share the spoils. I threw myself at Gina, my crazed partner in all this revelry. We laughed, high-fived, and hugged each other.

So, what happens now? I've made a new commitment to myself for service. I've been a witness and feel like an evangelist telling people what we saw and did, the people we met. While I ride in the PMC every year, our trip to NOLA helped me to understand bigger things and to dedicate myself even more to helping others in real and palpable ways. I'm going to get involved in regular service activities and events, and also try to form long-term connections with TCC.

Tim

Drywalling After the Flood

The signs of lagging reconstruction in Holly Grove are more subtle by now. Many houses are in good shape, freshly painted, lawns mowed, streets clean. Other houses are neatly boarded up or leaning to one side at a comfortable angle as if they had outlived their usefulness. Sometimes only the faint outline of a marked X adorned with letters and numbers is visible on the side of a house facing the street. It takes an effort of perspective to see not shabby decline but rather the slow climb out of catastrophe. A group of us travelled to a well-kept house on Pear Street wondering what if any work was required at all. Bit by bit, matter of factly, the family's story came out as we looked over the piles of ruined possessions and debris still arranged in the backyard. Eight feet of water submerging the first floor, boat rescuing family and neighbors. Coming home again to find possessions gone from the house and a favorite houseplant suspiciously in residence at a nearby house, but deciding to keep eyes on the bigger picture.
Half of the first floor had already been renovated, but the other half had only been gutted of moldy walls and rotted wood, leaving a neat forest of often wobbly studs. We cleared out various possessions and supplies which were stored there and uncovered the three-foot stack of sheetrock panels waiting to become the home's new skin. A small space, really, 5-6 rooms. A good drywaller in new house could have knocked off this much before lunch. For us, though, progress was almost incidental to learning, solving problems, and wrestling with aging tools. We filled out the strapping - wood to which the drywall is fastened - and reconnected beams made rootless by rot and termite, then fitted in bats of fiberglass insulation. Cut panels to size, and cut again and again to fit the never quite square, never entirely even walls. Finally zipped home dozens and dozens of screws to turn the flimsy panels into solid walls and give us at least a sense of the space being restored to life.

The family members worked along with us, spent time with us telling their stories, seeing if we needed anything. A collaboration which gave all of them and us something of real value - well as new walls. Later in the week when someone admonished us not to think of our actions as charity, I realized that the thought had never even crossed my mind.

Reflection

I’m wary of the self-fulfillment stories that typically follow a service trip. I was bolstered in that opinion by George Clooney’s recent comments about his visit to the refugee camps in Chad. “I don’t think people should be going there and coming back and saying how it affected them,” Clooney said. “I think we should all know that these people are hanging on by the skin of their teeth.” The story I want to tell is about disaster relief, and what happens to a community after the initial flood (pardon the pun) of response dies down.

In conversations with survivors of the hurricane, what comes across is a sense of resilience and anger. Psychologists might characterize these victims as traumatized, and indeed they seem to view the world through a unique filter that thankfully most of us will never know. Many residents feel twice victimized, once by Nature and then by Humankind. I can only imagine how they feel watching Bobby Jindal proudly talk about Louisiana’s response to the Hurricane, while defending his decision to reject spending targeted for his state.

After the photographers leave, after the journalists start chasing other stories, the people of New Orleans remain hopeful and in need. Their houses are shuttered, the residents scattered to states near and far. The politics of poverty are evident everywhere. You have to see it to believe it.

In the end, of course, I did come away with my own story of personal change. But that’s not for this piece. I’ll leave with a story that someone else experienced. A homeowner, observing a member of our group taking pictures of his devastated house, asked her to come back after he had a chance to mow the lawn. I left New Orleans thinking about the humanity of that moment, and the people of Hollygrove, proud and resilient folks who, with a bit more help will surely rise again.

Heidi Brown

Judy, On Avodah

In addition to our day jobs, we’ve had several thought-provoking discussions with people working locally. A few nights ago 3 young recent college grads from AVODAH, a Jewish service group with similarities to Americorps told us about the projects they’re working with during their year-long assignments. One is focusing on environmental issues, another is working with Rebuilding Together, and the third is coordinating community services in a health clinic. I was struck by their positive energy and commitment to their work. A group of 9 are living communally, sharing meals, supporting each other at the end of their sometimes overwhelming workdays, and exploring how they want to incorporate Judaism into their new adult selves. I was so impressed with what they are accomplishing, and how happy they are to be living in community.

Gina, on Surveying

I have spent every day walking the blocks of Hollygrove, the neighborhood where we are living and working. The city of New Orleans has not conducted any census since Katrina, so TCC is surveying hundreds of blocks on its own, in an effort to create a database that will show how many houses are still standing, how many have been renovated, how many are gutted, blighted, etc. We set out with a clipboard, a map showing each city block and its street addresses, a questionnaire to be filled out about each property, and a digital camera.
When we get to a property we take four pictures and fill out the questionnaire that identifies the type and size of the house, its current condition, whether a resident is present, and any other salient information. We don’t knock on doors. But not a single block goes by without someone coming out to share a story. After a day or two I learned that one resident on a block can tell you about most of the houses on that block. So what I had originally recorded as just an empty, gutted property, I now know is a house whose owner died, and that the son of the owner lives out of state and hasn’t come home to claim his family’s house. When I visited another house, a woman came out, pulled a chair onto her porch, sat down, and said, “So, what’s going on?” ready to spend a moment or an afternoon.

I came here thinking that I would spend a day surveying and then most of the week building, which I find very satisfying. But I can’t stop surveying. Every morning I think about who’s out there with a story to share, ready to teach me something about this city and the power of the human spirit.