After months of planning and anticipation, we are back in the Big Easy. This is our fourth tikkun olan/mitzvah work trip to New Orleans. We started coming here with Jewish teens in the fall of 2008, 3 years after Katrina and the subsequent flooding of Greater New Orleans.
When I say "we," I mean Temple Emanuel of Greensboro and Temple Sinai of North Miami Beach. I should not forget the American Hebrew Academy and Temple Emanuel of Winston-Salem, NC who have teamed up with us on earlier trips (and surely will be among our partners in the future). But "we" really refers to Jewish teens from our respective congregations. We had a choice years ago: who should make up the participants on a trip like this? Our answer: we wanted to do this as a service learning experience for older high school students, providing them a engaging and meaningful ways to continue their Jewish involvement by doing hands-on work and giving back. By the way, this is only one component of an overall approach to teen involvement.
This program was a recipient of the 2011 Fain Award given by the Religious Action Center of the Union for Reform Judaism for outstanding work in social action.
This year's group is our largest group ever. We have a total of 31 teen volunteers (15 from Greensboro, 5 from Roanoke, VA, and 11 from North Miami Beach) and 5 chaperones (including me and Rabbi David Young from Temple Sinai of North Miami Beach). A videographer is accompanying us for the first time and the plan is to show our documentary at the URJ's Biennial in a few weeks time.
December 1, 2011 - The group from Greensboro and Roanoke left North Carolina arriving in New Orleans at around 11 AM. We were met at the airport by the Florida group. Brave souls... they took an overnight bus-ride from South Florida to southern Louisiana.
Before we got to work, we did a few overview tours. Our first tour was with Julie Schwartz who took us on a panoramic tour of New Orleans. Along the way, we learned about the history, culture, and contours of New Orleans. She also spoke with us about local Jewish history. The main difference between this tour and ones that we have taken in the past is that you no longer see devastation. In fact, Julie mentioned that tours used to be called "disaster tours" or "Katrina tours." They are now referred to as "renaissance tours." When we go to the Lower 9th Ward (which we did not see yesterday), we will surely see many reminders of what happened 6+ years ago and the immense work that remains. But our tour focused on what has been rebuilt and how New Orleans of today is truly "back."
Our next stop was Tulane University. We were met by a number of Jewish undergrads including Carley Regal who went on our trip last year and is a freshman at Tulane now. Her dad and brother are on this year's trip. The highlight of our Tulane tour was an extended visit to the new Hillel Jewish student center. As a former Hillel Rabbi, I was so taken by the space and opportunities that this center for Jewish life offers. Corey Smith, Hillel's Associate Director, showed us around. Jewish life at Tulane is thriving and I was glad that our teens saw this. In fact, Tulane and Tulane Hillel have been regular stops on our trips to New Orleans. No matter where they go to college, I want to make sure that they know about and connect with their campus Hillels.
Our evening culminated with 2 hours of volunteer work at the New Orleans Mission. Well over 150 men and women were there for dinner. Many of them live on the streets and might otherwise not have eaten. Our students served dinner, helped out, and worked as a team to make everything go smoothly. After a full day of traveling, they have started to give back. Giving back will be our main focus over the next three days.
Before we left the Mission, one of the organizers told us his story. He had been in prison and is now in the process of rebuilding his life. How is he doing this? By helping others. His story was moving; perhaps one of our teens will write about it. But, the message behind his story was: do what you can to give back and help others.
No comments:
Post a Comment