During the first week of January I along with 11 other students and staff from Texas Tech University went to New Orleans to work with Youth Rebuilding New Orleans. This was my second time to go on a Raider Service Break trip to New Orleans. The issue we focused on was neighborhood stabilization and educational impact. Youth Rebuilding New Orleans was started by a group of high school students in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina hit and destroyed a lot of the homes in and around New Orleans. They take dilapidated and foreclosed homes, rebuild them, then provide them to teachers at an affordable price. This not only stabilizes neighborhoods but also makes a positive impact on the education system. It also gives teachers a chance to be able to buy a home that he or she may not be able to afford otherwise. They are also looking into providing affordable homes to emergency responders, e.g. firefighters, emts, and police officers.
We left Lubbock on Sunday, January 5th, at 6:00 am. It took us about twelve to thirteen hours of actual driving time to get to Youth Rebuilding New Orleans’s bunk house. After arriving at the bunkhouse, we all unloaded our things and then relaxed and got some rest because we knew the next day was going to be busy. We also learned that there was going to be a group from Marquette, a private university in Wisconsin, volunteering during the time that we were there. The next day, Monday, was our first day at the work site and getting to see the house we would be working on. This is when we met John, Ray, and Jeremy. They were the people from Youth Rebuilding New Orleans that we would be working with. We also met some of the students from Marquette that would be working with us that day.
Originally, I thought that since they were from a private university they were going to be preppy or snooty. However, after meeting them it turned out that they were not like that at all. They were very interactive and very friendly. We started the day by doing a name game to help learn everyone’s name. Then we were split into groups. One group went with Ray up into the attic to start putting down plywood. Another group went with Jeremy to start working on the frame inside the house, and the third group went with John and worked on putting plastic sheeting on one of the sides of the house that already had plywood on it. I was a part of the third group. Since John is the construction manager he told us what we needed to do and helped get us started then he went and checked on the others, and took care of phone calls from contractors that would need to come in and do their work. We started by unrolling a bit of the plastic sheeting and then nailing it to the corner of the house. Then, a couple of us unrolled and pulled it tight while others nailed it to the house. There were twelve to fourteen people in this group. The main reason for this was because the roll was very heavy and since we were having to hold it up in the air we would usually need to switch out people fairly often, and others would switch out with people that were nailing. That afternoon we got back from lunch a little earlier than the group from Marquette so John gave some of us some other tasks to do. Sarah and I went around and put tape on the bottom of the window frames on the sides of the house that had already been wrapped. We called it a day around 4, then headed back to the bunkhouse, ate dinner, reflected on our day and get ready for the next day.
Tuesday was our first half day. That is, we spent the first half of the day working at the house then, we spent the second half of the day on an excursion. Originally, we were going to do a swamp tour for our excursion. However, after getting there we learned that our tour guide recently had a heart attack and was still in the hospital. Thus, we changed plans and went to the French Quarter. We started by going to The Presbytére. The Presbytére is now a two-story museum in Jackson Square. The first floor of the museum is all about Hurricane Katrina. Walking through that floor and seeing all the different exhibits was a very educational experience. One of the exhibits was part of a wall from someone’s apartment that they had used as a daily journal. One thing this part of the museum made me wonder about is what exactly caused the federal government to take so long in responding and sending aide? It was days before they did anything. The second floor of the museum was all about Mardi Gras. It had some of the different costumes on display along with some of the high value jewelry items that had been worn. I was amazed at how large some of the costumes were knowing that people were going to have to walk around in them.
Wednesday, we shifted gears a bit and worked at Ms. Gloria’s Garden. That morning John took us on a tour and showed us some of the houses they had completed before going to the garden. It was nice to get a chance to see what we were working towards when we were working on the house. We helped Gloria move stuff over from her large old location to her new smaller location. Some of us worked on taking down the fence and posts around her old garden because there was another person coming to pick them up to use them at her gardens in the lower ninth ward. The others worked on painting and beautifying the new location. The garden is a place where people from the community can come to sit and relax or get some vegetables if they need some. It also had a small stage where they could host small events. Even though this was not what we had done the past two days we still enjoyed doing it.
Thursday was another half day. We spent the first half of the day working at Ms. Gloria’s Garden, and continuing with what we had been doing the day before. For our afternoon excursion we went to the Whitney Plantation. This is the only plantation museum in Louisiana that focuses solely on the lives of enslaved people. Even though I had been there before on the previous service break trip and knew what to expect it was still a very humbling and educational experience. It is a walking tour that takes about an hour and a half. During the tour the guide shows you different memorials built to honor the enslaved, an owner’s house, slave cabins, and the small cells that they were kept in at the auction block. Even though there are times that the tour seemed a bit gloomy I believe it is something everyone should go see at least once in their lifetime. One reason is because it is a part of our history that is very grim and we should always remember happened, and should not try to forget. Also, because to me it seems like a lot of times Hollywood portrays the relationship between those that are enslaved and their master as something that was polite and happy even though in reality it was anything but that.
Friday was our last day of volunteering. We spent the day putting up windows on the house. After we were done with that we headed back to the bunkhouse, and cleaned up and packed to get ready to leave the next day to head back to Lubbock. We left early Saturday morning to try to cross a line of storms before they got too bad. We got caught in a very heavy down pour while crossing a bridge but other than that we did not have to deal with much weather. The only other eventful thing that occurred on the way back was that we got a flat tire between Dallas and Abilene. Thankfully the rental car had a spare so we were able to get the tire changed and get back on the road.
Overall this was a great trip. One of the best parts for me was seeing the excitement on some of the other group members faces when they learned how to use some of the different power tools. I am glad that I got to go on this trip, and hope to be able to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity here in Lubbock, or an organization similar to that one.
-Aaron Perkins