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The Big Easy Casts Its Spell on Students’ Rebuilding Effort
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Cate Holdren, foreground, and Robin Berry were two construction students from Seattle Central Community College's Wood Construction Center who recently volunteered to help rebuild homes in St. Bernard Parish near New Orleans. |
By Julia Cordero, Seattle Central Community College Wood Construction Center
In the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, many of us wanted to reach out to New Orleans. But sometimes The Big Easy reaches out to us.
I am a student at the Seattle Central Community College Wood Construction Center. In March, I was asked to organize a week-long volunteer rebuilding effort in New Orleans. An anonymous donor wanted to send a group of students from our school to help with the rebuilding process. She had offered to fund transportation, room and board, but needed someone at the school to organize and facilitate the trip. I volunteered without hesitation.
I had recently returned to Seattle from a six-month stint working with Habitat for Humanity in hurricane-ravaged Slidell, La. The desire to return was strong. I lived in the New Orleans area for six years, and I love the uniqueness of the place and its people. Sharing the experience with a group of fellow students and Seattle-ites was a dream come true.
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Emerson Peek, left, and Justin Ansley work on the roof of one of the homes still standing in this parish neighborhood following Hurricane Katrina. | An Overflow of Volunteers
Planning the logistics of the trip was easy because of my frequent visits to New Orleans since the hurricane struck. The challenge was in selecting a team of 20 volunteers. Nearly one-third of the student body filled out the seven-page application to be considered for the trip.
The final team chosen came from all three divisions of study at the Wood Construction Center — carpentry, cabinetmaking and boat building. Seven women and 13 men, ranging in age from 20 to 49, were chosen. We also added three more students who were so willing to help that they paid their own way.
On Sunday, May 13, the group of volunteers left Seattle for St. Bernard Parish, southeast of downtown New Orleans, for a week-long rebuilding effort. Pre-Katrina, the parish had a population of 65,000. Eighteen months after the storm, barely 8,000 have returned — with most living in FEMA trailers or with relatives while they try to rebuild their homes.
In St. Bernard Parish, we were housed in Camp Hope, a storm-damaged elementary school that has been transformed into a rustic, but functional home-away-from-home for volunteers.
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Julia Cordero finally found encouraging signs of life last May during her third rebuilding trip to New Orleans since the city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. She and fellow students have already discussed returning and helping rebuild other homes and neighborhoods. |
My Third Trip Was a Charm
This was my third visit to New Orleans since Katrina struck. When I first saw the parish six months after Katrina, there was an eerie silence. No birds chirped, no dogs barked, no human voices carried in the heavy air. This time, I awoke to a bird’s song our first morning there, and I smiled. Life seemed to be returning.
The larger picture is not so comforting, however. There are still blocks and blocks of uninhabited houses in the parish, as well as in other hard-hit areas throughout the city. Some homes are gutted, empty carcasses of wooden studs and bricks. Some are still filled with the rot and the sorrow of soaked and destroyed possessions.
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Bree Bonfoey hangs drywall that will cover the studs that many volunteers have used to leave messages and encouraging notes about their experiences helping rebuild New Orleans. Many volunteers believe the messages serve as a kind of prayer to protect the homes they work on and their occupants. |
Our Task: Rebuilding Stripped Shells
Because of the tremendous volunteer and philanthropic effort in St. Bernard Parish last year, most of the homes have been gutted and stripped to their frames, and the focus now is on rebuilding the stripped shells.
Our work week began with an orientation at the headquarters of The St. Bernard Project, a grassroots organization founded by several volunteers who came to help and decided to stay. The project provides direct rebuilding, financial and community support to families in the parish who were displaced by the hurricanes.
Our group was assigned 13 houses. We did everything from drywall to cabinet installation, plumbing and roofing. Many of the home owners visited with the crews while they worked on the homes — an intimate experience for workers and often a cathartic one for residents. There is no shortage of tragic and heroic stories within the parish. Visitors need only be willing to lend an ear in order to hear them.
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The St. Bernard Parish monument honoring the many residents of the parish who died during Hurricane Katrina is located in Shell Beach along the shore of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, not far from the homes the students worked on. |
‘Lagniappe’ for Everyone
Gratitude floods St. Bernard Parish as deeply as the storm waters that destroyed it. Volunteers are cherished, appreciated and treated to random acts of kindness that are best embodied in the popular New Orleans term “lagniappe,” which means “a little something extra.”
Our group experienced lagniappe from the moment we arrived and throughout our week there. During a late stop at the local Walgreens on our first night, for instance, the store manager urged us to call her if we couldn’t get to the store before closing while we were in town — she would keep it open just for us so we could get what we needed.
Another time, a local restaurant owner, after talking with several of the students, donated lunch for the entire group.
One of the home owners, known as a local historian and storyteller, led our group on an evening tour of the ravaged fishing villages in the parish. Several home owners made a special New Orleans-style lunch for volunteers.
It is hard to imagine that the people of this parish have suffered so much and yet continue to welcome strangers with warmth and humor.
By the time we gathered at the airport to head back to Seattle, everyone had been charmed by New Orleans and it people. And, now that we are back in Seattle, there is plenty of talk of future trips back, both school-related and private endeavors.
Rebuilding New Orleans will take years, but the city’s spell worked just as well on its volunteers as it always has on its visitors.
You cannot come to New Orleans and remain untouched by its magic and its people. And you will leave with an inexplicable longing to return.
Julia Cordero is a student at Seattle Central Community College’s nationally-recognized Wood Construction Center.
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