Sorry I haven't been able to post. the internet at camp was not working Friday. After a day in the car I'm too tired to put much on here tonight either. I will attempt to load more tomorrow if we stop somewhere during the day. If that's not possible it will be tomorrow evening.
Just to give you a little bit of a taste of things, here are a few photos from the Bunny Friends community garden site from Thursday:
and a few from the Rampart Street house on Wednesday & breakfast prep on Thursday morning:
Michelle is clearly in charge!
Christina, one of our fearless leaders
One of our Canadian friends doing battle with a tree stump that grew through a fence
Clearly Joan is ready for lunch
Alycia and Billy
Lawn decoration in front of a house near the river
Top is the date searched, bottoms is # found dead inside, fortunately none here.
After going on the Katrina 10 trip to Houma last year, I was very excited to get back down here and help out in any way I can. We did demolition work in Houma, and it's nice that this year instead of demolishing, we are creating. Headed by Frank, our 11 person team has been priming, painting, and preparing the floors for installation of bamboo wood flooring this week. The first few days were rough because we had to scrape the plaster off of the floors to make them smooth for wood, and it was definitely hard work :) We were able to meet our homeowners Al and Joyce and talk with them about their experience, which was amazing as well. Yesterday we started the flooring and today we finally started to paint with actual paint, not primer! This was pretty exciting for everyone.
Vacuuming up all of our debris from floor scraping, it got messy!
Starting the floors!...excited about using the nail guns!
And the priming continues.....
Taking a MUCH needed break on the second floor deck.
Most of the krewe pulling together to finish priming the last room!
The rollers are impossible to take apart...
Cleaning everything out for the day!
Even though the week is over tomorrow, we got a LOT done at the house...there's much more to be done, of course, but it's nice to know that we made such progress this week. I love coming down to New Orleans to help out, and I would stay for a year if I could!! I'll see you all next year :)
Amy Duda
This week has been another whirlwind! We have all been busy, busy, busy! After spending all of Monday under the Rampart Street house I was ready for a new project on Tuesday morning, but our fearless leader, Alex, had other plans for me, Ang and Sam, so..... back under the house we went to finish us the footings.
First we had to find capstones for each of the footings and glue them down. Then we needed enough boards to fill in the space between the cinderblocks and the support beams. Once the boards were all planed down to fit neatly, everything was glued in place.
I felt that the girls had been really good sports about spending 2 days underneath the house so I felt they earned the right to sign it.
Me too because I had been underneath there on two different trips.
So we left our mark for the future home owners and maybe some others to see one day.
I don't think we'll be going back under any time soon!
While we were under the house all sorts of work was going on above us. With a total of 20 people on our site, 10 from the Detroit Presbytery and 10 from Canada, the house is a flurry of activity.
Billy was painting
Doug was grouting
Dave was painting the trim
P-Dah & Gumby were hanging out at Stonehenge
This sad little hunk of concrete was waiting for a make-over
Background- I'm one of the 17 students from the H.O.P.E organization that came down to New Orleans this year. I am 20-years-old and this is my third trip for the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Assistance and I've loved every second of it thus far.
If you asked my family about me working on this trip they would probably laugh at the thought of a hammer in my hand. Surprisingly, for the second year in a row, I am doing demolition on a house with a group of 6 others and the house is coming down in pieces. (yes, with my help mom!) We have to save the trim around the windows and the walls because the home owner wants to re-use it when the house is being put back together to get the historical look that it currently holds, which made the first two days extra long. Now that all the important parts are stored away, sledge hammers, crow bars, hammers, and anything else we can find to put a hole in the walls and tear down the boards behind them, are in our hands.
Our home from the outside...needs some work!
Rochelle and Shane taking more drywall down, and working on the window trim
When we first walked into the home, the walls were crumbling, the ceiling had holes in them looking into the attic, and mold lined almost everything all around the home. Besides for the fact of it falling to pieces, you can tell that the house at one point was extremely beautiful with vibrant blue walls, pink walls, unique fire places and very tall ceilings. The person that is going to live in this home in the future will be very fortunate!
Ceiling just falling apart
Really cool fireplace
Kitchen when we first walked in, no work done, falling apart as well.
After work on Monday our leader Tom Duffield took a group of us to one of the struggling communities which had an extremely cool art project on the side of an abandoned building. The artist turned the side of the building into a chalkboard wall where people can write things they want to do before they die. Apparently it was getting torn down the next day, so we made it just in time. This was by far my favorite part of the day!
Tuesday was another long day of work, work, and more work as we saved more trim, doors, and windows around the home. We left our worksite a little early to come to camp and prepare a nice BBQ Chicken dinner for everyone. Seeing that I have never touched a grill before, the boys guided me through it and dinner turned out amazing! No one was sick this morning either, which was an extra bonus on my part. hahaha After dinner the 17 students from H.O.P.E, our fearless leader and professor Rochelle Zaranek, Queen Julie Guzman Smith, Captian Frank, and the one and only Dave led us down to Bourbon Street for some Karaoke at "The Cat's Meow." ....nobody had ANY idea what we were in for. Let's just say that the boys sang Shania Twain, one of the students, George Mikla, was famous by time the night was over, and the girls did a great job at dancing to every song. I really do not believe I have EVER laughed so hard before in my entire life. Couldn't have asked for a better night!
Shane and Billy singing to "That don't impress me much" by Shania Twain - HILARIOUS
George belting away to "Dancing in the Street"
the boys doing the YMCA...before they got in costumes hahaha
Lisa & Kristin singing to Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman"
One of George's many acts. - Speechless!
Today was HOT without a breeze which made the day very long. Our goal was to get all of the drywall down and the boards behind it off. About 3/4 of that is done and within an hour tomorrow we should be where we wanted to be by the end of today. Definitely making some progress! Dinner is GUMBO for the night being made by a local chef and we're all looking very forward to it! I look so forward to these trips all year long and it feels like they're over before we even get started. I can't wait to see what tomorrow and Friday hold for us at the work site and I look so forward to seeing a better and even more Beautiful New Orleans when I return years from now, knowing that I was a part of this wonderful experience.
Kate taking more of the wall down. You're actually looking into two rooms!
It's crazy how a week down here can put so much of your life into perspective. I am a strong believer that everything really does happen for a reason, and as horrible and heart breaking as the hurricanes that hit these homes was, and as much as the volunteers are working to serve the community and God, I will never be able to pay back everything I have learned from the home owners and this city.
Spreading HOPE from one city to the next, Kristine Mannino.
oh, and if you have been following and you know our rule about being FLEXIBILE with Gumby and P-Dah, you would have known that P-Dah was a little too flexible and broke his leg. Luckily, I did the honors of patching him up and gave him a nice little cast! P-DAH IS BACK IN ACTION!
Tuesday, Ahh!
Background: I'm a 17 year old senior in high school and this is my first trip. Whooo!
I felt so much more productive today then yesterday! Granted my group didn't get there late today or leave early so we had a lot more work hours. We finished laying the bricks for the patio (which looks phenomenal, nice job everyone!!) and my dad and I started working on a bench to go right by the patio. He is a perfectionist, and so far, it looks perfect. I'm really excited to finish that with my dad. We also finished all the grouting of the tiles, another thing of the checklist. Others worked on painting the window frames and doing some work under the house. We're trying to fill up the dumpster asap because there is an awful smell protruding from it. A church nearby told us a dog in the neighborhood had died and it might have been tossed in there. Who would do that? Then again, someone stole 2 plants from the yard. Planted plants. Like, in the ground. Fo' real?
Most other people appear to be really happy with our presence though. Several people from in the neighborhood have stopped by already to say hello and show their appreciation of all the work we're doing. People honk and wave when they drive by. Its just a great feeling of community.
Everyone is really starting to work as a team, and we're all learning each other's names. (whoo!!) One of our site managers, Christina Drake, has a really inspiring story. She lived in Pennsylvania before the Hurricane hit and then quit her job completely to come help. Shes been living here for 4 years and works as an unpaid volunteer full time. I can't even begin to know how bad her financial stress is but she continues doing work only for others. The way she gets her income is from selling music CDs that she has recorded herself. (Her voice is amazing, when I heard her sing in the background I thought a CD was playing. Crazy) She has truly inspired me to consider coming down here to for a longer period of time in 2012.
So far its been a truly enlightening experience, it feels good to actually physically be helping someone rather than just tossing a few bucks in a donation box. Its really not the same. I can't wait to keep working on making this house even more beautiful. I really wish I could stay another week and finish. However, its still early in the week. Who knows how I'll feel by Friday. :) -Michelle Friedow
Up bright and early for day 1 of St. Roch reconstruction. It was with the HOPE students it just so happened that as they were working their college president stopped by to get a first hand look of what his college is doing to help rebuild New Orleans, one house at a time. Today included cleaning up mudding from the previous drywall installation, priming walls for paint and prepping the floor for a bamboo finish. There was a lot of fun involved, but the photos don't tell the full story. By George Mikla
