This is hard to believe until you see it yourself. The places that you need to see are not in downtown New Orleans. Yet, they are also not tucked away. The starkest examples can be found by going to St. Bernard Parish (to the east of New Orleans) and the Lower Ninth Ward.
We spent the few hours that we had before our 2:15 pm flight volunteering in the Lower Ninth Ward. The Florida contingent brought us to our work site, yet they did not work that morning as they had a long bus ride home ahead of them. The 20 teens from Greensboro and Roanoke met Linda Jackson, the President of the Lower Ninth Ward Homeowners' Association.
We met Linda at her house. She briefly told us that where we were standing used to be houses as far as the eye could see. That is no longer the case. When the eastern wall of the Industrial Canal collapsed, water poured through the entire area ripping homes from their foundations and tossing them about. Everything was underwater. To this day, 1500 people are still unaccounted for. And despite the few houses that survived and the exotic looking new homes constructed by Brad Pitt's Make It Right group, I would not argue with anyone who claimed that the Lower Ninth Ward was Ground Zero of the flooding that submerged New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. To this day, much of the area looks like it did only weeks after the waters subsided and the debris was removed.
Linda explained to us that the government attempted to exercise imminent domain over the Lower Ninth Ward. Why? The Lower Ninth was one of the poorest areas of New Orleans, of Louisiana, of the entire US prior to Katrina. Crime, drugs, and other societal problems were well-known there. The government's idea was to take the land and turn it into an industrial zone. But the Lower Ninth was home to its families for generations. Linda reminded us of the importance of land. If you have land, she said, you have a stakehold, you have power. She, and hundreds of other families, were not about to give up what was theirs. A few attorneys came to New Orleans as volunteers. They were from other big cities: Washington, New York, etc. They offered to help defend the homeowners of the Lower Ninth Ward. When these attorneys were told that they were not licensed to practice in Lousiana, they sat for the bar exam. Linda expressed to us her thanks for their work.
To understand the Lower Ninth Ward post-Katrina, you have to see this sculpture which is located on the median as you come off the bridge over the Industrial Canal into the neighborhood:
The central (red) structure is a house. It is just a shell and may represent the homes that used to be there, the homes that were destroyed, the homes that needed to be gutted, the homes that are being rebuilt... you name it. The blue posts on the left represent the rising waters which flooded the area. There are chairs on the right (and one on the porch inside the central structure not visible from this angle). These chairs represent how the people of New Orleans have front porches, unlike many of the cities we know nowadays where we only have back porches. A back porch is for privacy. A front porch is for community. It means you know your neighbors, and know them well. These chairs are empty, waiting for so many friends and family to return home. 6+ years later, the waiting continues.
Our task that Sunday morning was to clean up a property lot that had overgrown with weeds. This seems like such an easy task. Grab a weed-whacker and get to work, right? The problem is that there aren't any weed-whackers. The tools we had were rudimentary hand weed cutters. They belong to Linda and she has a few dozen of them. That's what she can store in her house. You can't store dozens of lawn mowers there. And a lawn mower wouldn't have stood a chance against the weeds that we were cutting, some of which were over 7 feet tall. It took our group of 20 teens (and two of our chaperones) nearly two hours to clear the lot that we were assigned to. My hands still have blisters on them.
It was rewarding to work on this project and finish it. However, the work that we did was critical in ways that our students heard directly from Linda. She told us how lots with overgrown weeds are subject to fines of $100 a day. That is a hefty sum, especially when your house is no longer there and you live elsewhere. And you are poor, or old or infirm, or all of the above. If the fees add up, the city just confiscates your property. We worked that day to help a family, maybe more than one family, avoid this fate.
Like everything else we did, our work on Day 4 was far from easy. As we finished, we looked around and saw dozens if not more lots that needed similar care. In situations like that, it would be understandable to stand back and say "this job is just too big, too complicated, and not worth it." Honestly, I have never heard that from anyone in New Orleans. Nor have I heard it from the students that have come on our trips over the past four years. Instead, I see people, little by little, rolling up their sleeves, working hard, and sharing messages of hope.
There will be more posts on our trip to New Orleans in the coming weeks and beyond featuring pictures and other links. I want to end this post by expressing my gratitude: to the supporters of this program, to the congregations that have participated, to the individuals and organizations that we consult and work with, to the people of New Orleans, and to the students who dedicated their time and presence to making a difference in the lives of others. For those who are reading these postings who do not belong to our Temples, or who are from places beyond the "borders" of the Jewish community, please know that these service learning projects are highly replicable. Feel free to be in touch if you want a sounding board for your ideas.
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