2008 Service Trip to New Orleans

After a long 13 hour car ride back to Winston-Salem, I have finally felt like I’ve had enough time to reflect on my experiences from the past week. I have taken away with me two major conclusions that really stuck out to me during my time in New Orleans and now that I am back home at Wake Forest. First of all, I learned so much about the amazing and resilient city of New Orleans and how much more still needs to be done there, and I also learned what it truly means to be a member of the Wake Forest Community.

These days, with our busy lives and schedules it is so easy to forget about what is still going on in New Orleans; I was aware that there was still work to be done, however I was unaware of the continuing gravity of the situation. After coming home and telling people about all the still-devastated areas of New Orleans and how much work still needs to be done, it was amazing to see how many people were shocked that the city wasn’t “back to normal” now. Although there are some areas such as the French Quarter and Downtown area which have more-or-less returned to pre-Katrina status, there are many others which still have an eerie feel to them, because it is not back to normal… it’s about as far from normal as you can get. People in the St. Bernard’s Parish, Lower Ninth Ward, even Lakeview (a middle-class neighborhood) are just moving home, or are living in trailers in front of their old houses, waiting for them to be gutted and fixed-up; some, but not many, businesses are opening up in these areas, and when you drive through these neighborhoods, it looks like the storm hit just a few weeks ago, not 2.5 years ago. That’s probably the scariest part… it’s been so long, yet there is still SO much to be done. However, it was made clear to us, that as long as groups like us continue to come down and help rebuild the city, it will start to fully return to the way it was within a few years.

After speaking with various New Orleaneans, it was also made clear to us, that the message we should and will bring back with us, is that even with all of this devastation in the surrounding neighborhoods of the city, New Orleans IS up and running. The only way that this city will continue to survive is if people continue to come and visit it… whether it be for service or tourism, it is truly an amazing city and no matter why you are visiting, it is a place that you can easily fall in love with. After only spending a few days there, I vowed to return to the Big Easy to do more service and help revive it to its full potential. Most of our group shared this same sentiment, and many of us hope to return together sometime during the upcoming summer.

Finally, this week has also shown me what it means to be part of the Wake Forest Community. The outreach and support that we received from Wake Forest alumni and parents while we were in New Orleans was truly amazing. It’s not often that someone is willing to bring in and feed 18 hungry college kids in their home or take them out to dinner. It made our experience in New Orleans that much more meaningful, because we realized that not only were we helping the community of New Orleans, but we were helping those of Wake Forest. It was great to feel such Demon Deacon pride as we helped out those in need! Thank you again to the Wake Forest alumni and families who met with us in New Orleans… we couldn’t be more grateful!!

This is what we heard after working in the Community Center of St. Bernard Parish for seven hours today. After working in the county which was destroyed the most by Hurricane Katrina it has become clear that this area is one of the districts most in need, and yet it was hard to come across volunteer opportunities. From the moment we arrived to this Community Center, it was truly eye-opening. It took us a few hours to find the location, and in the process we came across more than a handful of boarded-up houses and streets which had been completely shut down, yet this didn’t compare to what we saw once we reached the St. Barnard’s Parish; nearly all of the houses were still in poor shape and most of the families were still very much in need.

I spent a lot of the day working with the family members of this traumatized area. When we first arrived, I had two young children run up to me and immediately started to play hide-and-go-seek and goofing around. Seven year old Heather and six year old Hayden were home-schooled by their mother, but we were soon to find out that they spent most of their time in the center, playing with the volunteers who come in and out of the doors every day in the place which they call home. For the first few hours of the day we colored Lilo-and-Stich color books and played outside on the swing set, and later, they were more than excited to be able to help me bring canned food into the distribution area, where any family from the district could come in to pick up food for themselves and their family. Once they returned home with their mother, I began speaking with some of the older visitors to the center. This was the first account I had with anyone who had truly experienced the storm. One of the ladies, Mary, spoke to me about how she had nothing left after the storm hit and hated to be so greedy by taking the food from the center, but explained, “what else can you do when you had to sit outside on your roof for a few days, hoping that someone would come and rescue you.”

As much as Rosemary’s story resonated with me, I felt the most emotional connection with Stephen. Stephen is one of the directors of the Community Center and had spoken to me on-and-off throughout the day. He recounted to me his experiences from the story, and was very happy to explain the lies that the media portrayed… they had measured the height of the waves incorrectly, they were really much higher than the measurements which the media had reported. Later on in the afternoon, he shared to the group his experiences via DVD, which had been put together from his own pictures, as well as other photographers who had witnessed the storm first-hand. This was truly the most eye-opening experience for me. I had seen many pictures over the course of the past two years, but these made the devastation come alive. I had never had someone account the stories behind the pictures while they flashed in front of my eyes. Stephen began to tell me the story of his escape and how he lost not only all of pets (who were replaced by volunteers throughout the months), but also how he lost his wife, who he no longer had any pictures to remember her by, because his house was completed submerged underwater after the storm. In conjunction with these stories which had already touched me, on the drive home, I witnessed so many more neighborhoods which had been hit extremely hard by the storm. Nearly all of these areas had been shutdown, and very few businesses have opened up nearly three years later. This day was truly moving and I look forward to speaking more with the residents of these devastated communities.