Monday Work Day 1

We all eagerly woke up, had breakfast and were ready for a day of work at 8 AM. By 3 :30 PM the work teams started straggling in making a mad dash for the showers. We realized how fortunate we are to have these lovely showers this easily accessible warm water to refresh ourselves after a hard day's work. Did New Orleans ever earn its reputation today as hot humid and muggy.

Today we broke up into teams and set off to different assignments. Our team went to the Treme Recreation Center that is near the French Quarter. This center was a thriving community place with a pool and gym, but during Katrina and the aftermath, because they hadn't flooded a lot of the space was used by the National Guard and the Red Cross. Each group used the space for their own needs and most of the upper lever became a dumping ground. The mission was to clean up the space and make it usable. Mission was accomplished. The members of the group which also included youth and advisors from New York felt a sense of pride at the end of the day.
(Gerry Pizzi)

One team was assigned to work on a house owned by a member of the church, "Miss Gwen", in mid-city. The first floor of her two-story house filled with six feet of water, and sat for 6 weeks before the authorities were able to pump the water out of the city. Meanwhile, she had been spending much of her time in Chicago, and was recently diagnosed with a serious illness. When the team arrived, the first floor was empty except for some upper cabinets in the kitchen. The walls had been painted upstairs and down, but there was paint spattered on the floors. Furniture, full of plaster dust, was piled in two bedrooms upstairs. In the first two days, the team was able to scrape paint off the upstairs floors and staircase, clean and organize her belongings, move everything out of one room so that the floors could be refinished, and start work on hanging doors in her living room and putting up a picture rail. Miss Gwen's trailer is still in the front yard, and she is under a deadline to make the house habitable so that she can be reimbursed by her insurance company.



Another team worked on a formerly flooded home in the Upper 9th. This home is owned by two pastors who want to turn the space into a food pantry. This place needs an incredible amount of skilled labor. The team also did some landscaping at the food pantry and church.

Some of us signed on for non physical work and had the opportunity of sorting through letters and filing documents at the Amistad Center.

And finally another team was assigned to the Lower 9th Ward where they did carpentry.
Our group is working on the NENA project to help finish some of the homes that are currently being built. It's very satisfying to meet the home owners and talked with them to understand more what is going on. Hopefully, after we leave here, the people will able to move into their new homes or see the progress on their homes.