One Brick New Orleans Trip

During our July trip to New Orleans, One Brick was contacted by Austin O'Neill a reporter with WAMU 88.5FM in Washington D.C. Austin had heard about our travels to NOLA, and wanted to learn more about our experiences and those of others from the Washington D.C. area who have been involved in the relief efforts.

Here are her stories, compiled in a 5 part series (One Brick was featured in Part II):

Hurricane Katrina Series Part I
August 27, 2007 - Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast nearly two years ago, but evidence of its destructive force lingers. Reporter Austin O'Neill visited New Orleans, where she found a number of D.C., area residents trying to make a difference. In part one of our series, we meet two district residents who left the nation's capital to help rebuild lives along the Gulf Coast...
Part I: wamu.org/audio/nw/07/08/n1070827-17462.asx

Hurricane Katrina Series Part II
August 28, 2007 - As the nation reflects on the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, WAMU 88-5 is presenting a series of reports about the D.C., Gulf Coast Connection. Reporter Austin O'Neill traveled to the region where she found a district resident who brought elbow grease along with her "team-spirit," all in an effort to lend a hand...
Part II: wamu.org/audio/nw/07/08/n1070828-17463.asx

Hurricane Katrina Series Part III
August 29, 2007 - Even though it's been two years since Hurricane Katrina devastated cities and towns along the Gulf Coast, there's still much work to be done. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is a major player in the re-building effort. In part three of our series, Reporter Austin O'Neill, who recently toured the region, speaks with FEMA's man-in-charge in New Orleans...
Part III: wamu.org/audio/nw/07/08/n3070829-17516.asx

August 30, 2007 - In the two years since Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the Gulf Coast, thousands of Americans have made their way to the region to lend a hand. Reporter Austin O'Neill, who traveled to New Orleans recently, introduces us to a D-C resident who took his business skills to the "Big Easy" to help put the city back on its feet...
Part IV: wamu.org/audio/nw/07/08/n1070830-17527.asx

This article was written by Matt Sullivan, one of the volunteers who joined One Brick on our July trip to New Orleans. Thank you, Matt for such an incredible and moving piece.


The engines of the Boeing 737 hummed as I sat in 13D, my mind hazy with fatigue from the preceding week as I wondered when we were ever going to take off. We had been sitting at the end of the runway for an interminable period and my patience, normally in generous supply, was beginning to wear thin. I cast my eyes over to the window, trying to make out the details of Los Angeles international airport through the scratched Perspex. Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to focus on any details. I knew my eyes weren’t perfect, but where there should have been grey, utilitarian buildings and the odd taxiing plane, I could only make out indistinct blurs, not entirely dissimilar to clouds…

“Please fasten your seatbelts,” announced the intercom. “We are now beginning our descent to San Francisco.”

Hmm. Maybe I was more tired than I thought…

If I was, it could be excused – I was returning from a week of volunteer work repairing houses in the devastated St Bernard Parish of New Orleans, Louisiana.
The historic city of New Orleans, so prominent in the head lines from the disastrous hurricane season of 2005, is still in a process of recovery. Long after it has been dropped from the media spotlight, and drifted from the minds of most Americans, New Orleans aches from a tragedy it can barely overcome. A cursory glance around the streets shows, behind the façade of parties and jazz, lingering marks from the hurricane and ensuing flood can be seen everywhere. Boarded up houses and lots choked with weeds intersperse the classic French quarter homes. Despite this, there are signs of progress, and the city itself just celebrated its population returning to two thirds of its pre-Katrina levels.

The situation in St Bernard Parish, however, is another story. It received the brunt of the hurricane, the vast majority of the township being drowned under waters up to 20 feet deep. Unfortunately it did not have the celebrity status of the Big Easy to draw in tourist dollars. It was a classic country town, of tight-knit families and strong community spirit, where children would live a block from their parents, and although poor (the average household income, pre-Katrina, was only $35,000) they were proud of not having to rely on the government or outside help to get by. Consequently, St Bernard Parish has suffered a double tragedy: Not only have the residents had their own homes destroyed, but also the homes of family, friends, everyone they know and trust. It’s a hard thing to comprehend, the loss of a home, but to loose every recourse, every safety net and safeguard in one devastating blow, such a thing would drive most to despair.

The people of Bernard Parish have struggled on, and shown amazing spirit, but they need help.

This was the reason for my visit, short as it was. In the absence of adequate government response, volunteer groups from all across the country have, in great numbers, taken it upon themselves to address the plight of their fellow Americans. Within St Bernard Parish, there are many brave and inspiring stories of individuals who have made enormous personal sacrifices to do what they can to help this stricken community. In my time there I had the fortune to meet some of these people, such as Zack Rosenburg, who after a brief visit to the area to aid with the relief effort, realized the magnitude of the undertaking and did the unthinkable: He sold his house, and along with his wife moved down to the Parish and set up St Bernard Project. This group began work in March 2006, and continues to this day, as committed as ever to restoring this once vibrant town through practical undertakings such as the gutting and repair of flood damaged homes. Organizations such as St Bernard Project and Habitat for Humanity are playing a vital role in the restoration effort. They provide a foundation on which to direct the energy of the constant influx of volunteers, a framework to maximize the effectiveness of a hugely divergent collection of religious groups, community groups and motivated individuals that arrive daily. Without their guiding hand, much of the labor of these visiting volunteers, well-meaning though it may be, would be diluted and lost, to the enormous detriment of the St Bernard Parishioners. Their ongoing work deserves much greater recognition than it currently receives.

Additional boons to volunteers are the temporary camps that have been set up to provide cheap accommodation and a convenient base for those involved in the restoration. Camps such as the inspiringly named Camp Hope, operated by Habitat for Humanity, situated in an abandoned local school within the Parish itself. This camp is a well run operation and, although concessions have to be made to the intermittent municipal services and post-disaster interior design, they have built up a homely and cheery atmosphere. Amazingly, despite housing almost three hundred volunteers during my stay there, it never felt crowded, and was always a welcome retreat from the day’s labors. The camp keeps itself in order through a list of expected standard of behavior, and getting the temporary residents involved in the tasks needed to keep things running smoothly (I soon found myself an expert in air conditioner maintenance).

The organizations that encourage and assist everyday people to lend their hearts and hands to this worthy endeavor are just as critical as any. I became involved through the volunteer network One Brick, an organization that is expanding in membership rapidly throughout the States. Their motto is “Volunteering Made Easy”, and it has certainly served them well, drawing in a wide spectrum of the population eager to make a contribution to their communities and looking for a way to begin. One Brick began in San Francisco in 2001, and has since grown to have chapters in New York, Chicago and Washington DC, with plans to open another chapter very soon. The network is run almost entirely by volunteers with very little overhead, and it’s encourages its members to get involved in a variety of different projects when it is convenient for them, without demanding long term commitments that many people today feel either unwilling or unable to make. Membership in San Francisco alone exceeds 12,000, and there is a weekly newsletter published listing the events members can sign up for. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

Signing up and booking a plane ticket is one thing, arriving at our destination and seeing the reality that still exists is something completely different. Even those among us who held disdain for the government and its dealings with the residents of St Bernard Parish were shocked, aghast at the devastation that we passed through in reaching Camp Hope. Block after block of shattered homes, with roofs caved in and walls riddled with holes. Skeletons of shopping complexes stand gauntly over disused car parks, piles of debris crowding doorways and windows. Still more incredible are the numbers of houses that upon initial glace appear sound, but then the eye catches tell-tale signs – a gap in the roof, a tendril creeping from under a door – and you realize that the house is a ruin inside, most likely still buried in the filth of the initial flood like a time-capsule to the recovering world outside. The FEMA trailers that pass for homes are everywhere, either camped outside their occupants’ former homes or found in vast trailer parks. These people have now been living in these temporary structures for almost two years now and, for most of them, there is no end in site. In many neighborhoods, barely one house in ten is restored to its pre-disaster condition, and the work proceeds slowly.

I found one of the most powerful images was to be of a football field adjacent to the camp. The grass was thick and green, but that was not what fixed my attention. Surrounding the field, all of the light poles were leaning to one side, like saplings caught in a stiff breeze. It was not wind that imparted this lean, however, but vast, inconceivable torrents of water, a lean that held witness to the might of the forces unleashed on the community of St Bernard Parish.

I and a number of my fellow One Brickers were assigned to St Bernard Project, and were shipped to the project’s headquarters behind what used to be St Bernard’s commercial district. In a tight office (almost ironic considering the vast tracts of disused buildings that surrounded us, but ample for the needs of the low key operation), the project founder Zack briefed us on the situation, and the work that was being done. Zack, a former public defender, is a man impassioned by the work he had undertaken, and his words reflected it. After our brief tour of the town beforehand few of us harbored any doubts about our decision to travel all the way to Louisiana, and by the time Zack finished talking the only thing we wondered was why we hadn’t come sooner. It does not take an eloquent spokesman to press the case for St Bernard – the devastation is overwhelming, the cause undeniably just. Initially after the flood, efforts by groups such as St Bernard Project had been directed on gutting the ruined houses, clearing them out and taking down all the damaged walls and fittings. With over 2,000 homes completed, the focus had shifted to restoration, returning the homes to livable states and letting the families, displaced for so long, return to begin their lives again. It is in the restoration effort that I found assigned. Hesitant concerns about my limited experience in the construction industry were immediately dismissed. Don’t worry, they said, you will get all the instruction you need on site.

A short time later we had arrived at our first home, and within moments I was sanding my first drywall. It was not, I soon discovered, to be my last. The owner of the drywall and attached house was a captivating local named Marc, who had quickly won over the volunteers with his quick wit and warm Southern hospitality. Indeed, he was so grateful and pleasant that I was feeling apologetic I had only my meager skill set to offer in return. Fortunately, with a bit of application and the expert tutelage of Marc and Dave, I rapidly gained a discerning eye and went about my work with the ease of an old hand. The day disappeared before we knew it and, caked in a fine dust and speckled with mud, we headed back to Camp Hope. Our muscles aching in new and unfamiliar ways, there was only time to shower and change before the relentless One Brick juggernaut headed out to the streets of New Orleans for dinner and a glimpse of the fabled French Quarter. This, I would discover, was to become a theme. The evening ended with drinks and jazz, as all good evenings should, though while heading back to bed a detour was proposed to see where the levees had broken in 2005, to such devastating effect. It was a surreal experience; as we approached the breach point we drove along roads bordered by fields of grass, not yet realizing these fields were once the suburban streets of the Lower 9th Ward.

The rest of the week passed quickly, the days filled with grueling yet satisfying labor, the nights an endless succession of new experiences. We learned vital facts such as alligators’ preference for PB&J (on white bread thank you very much, none of that whole wheat nonsense), and bonded with the local residents (though we may not be welcome back to a certain local judge’s house after that pool wrestling tournament…). By the time Saturday had arrived, most of the One Bricker’s had departed or were shortly about to (my own flight was at the ungodly hour of 7am, something I had cause to lament while dancing to eighties classics at a club in the French Quarter at 4am). Our week was over, but the hangovers would continue.

To say such an experience was unforgettable is cliché, but I struggle for better words to describe it. What made it all the more incredible was the range of personalities that responded to the One Brick call, something I find a tremendous strength of the organization and bodes for an impressive future. While the government continues to ignore the crisis in St Bernard Parish, there will remain a great deal of work to do. I could not think of a better way to spend your time.

August 23, 2007

Report: Volunteer Services in New Orleans Worth Millions
More than a million people have volunteered to help in the post-Katrina recovery efforts, providing services worth more than $260-million to the region, a new government report has found, The Times-Picayune, in New Orleans, reports.

The Corporation for National and Community Service's research found that the number of volunteers in the region rose 9 percent last year over the first year after Hurricane Katrina, the paper reports. The local executive director of Habitat for Humanity tells the paper he estimates that such levels of volunteer activity need to continue for at least eight more years.

To date, the 1.1 million volunteers in the area have clocked approximately 14 million hours of work, the study found.

Retreat From St. Bernard Parish
As in many of St. Bernard's devastated neighborhoods, few people have returned to this block: Only three of 14 houses have been reoccupied. Some of those who have stayed away said they were simply afraid of another flood. Others said they initially lacked the money to rebuild.



(From The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2007/08/26/GR2007082600163.html)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/25/AR2007082501268.html?sub=AR
After Katrina, A Lonely Homecoming
Two years later, just a few residents of a tightknit Louisiana community have returned to their ruined neighborhood.

By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 26, 2007; Page A01

ARABI, La. -- Honie Bauer was the first to move back.

It was seven months after Hurricane Katrina, and she figured others would follow her return to the block of little brick houses they'd all abandoned during the flood. She plunked a FEMA trailer down in her front yard. She mucked out the house. She put up drywall. She laid tile.

The pull of her tightknit community in St. Bernard Parish, or at least her memory of it, was powerful.

"This is home, and I just had to be here," said Bauer, 35, a hospital office manager and a native of the area. "I was going to do whatever it takes."

But while Bauer was charging in, most of her neighbors on the city block bounded by Rowley Boulevard, Fawn Drive, Badger Drive and Fox Drive, were in the midst of a completely different maneuver: They were retreating.

Today, nearly two years after the storm, 11 of 14 properties on the block stand vacant, and in interviews, all but one of those who left indicated they have no intention of returning. Far from rising from the devastation of Katrina, this slice of St. Bernard Parish remains a desolate and depressing place.

It is a scene repeated in flood-ravaged neighborhoods elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, especially parts of the Lower Ninth Ward, Gentilly and New Orleans East. In St. Bernard, most of the 67,000 residents have not returned. The massive desertions are evidence that Katrina's destructive effects are no longer acute but chronic and that, as evacuees set down roots elsewhere, many close-knit communities blasted apart by the storm may never return.

House after house in Bauer's neighborhood sits abandoned, most boarded up, their darkened facades still bearing the spray-painted symbols that rescuers scrawled on each house to record the dead. Other structures have been demolished down to the concrete slab. In some yards, the grass grows shoulder-high.

Dingy white pump trucks regularly rumble through, stopping at manholes, dropping tubes down and sucking the sewage out of the parish's broken underground system. And in a neighborhood that once enjoyed backyard cookouts for New Orleans Saints football games, those few children who have returned are now forbidden from going barefoot -- there's too much broken glass out there -- and they complain of having no friends to play with.

"It's like the apocalypse over here now," said Phyllis Puglia, a 52-year-old lawyer and former resident of Fawn Drive. "People are afraid."

Exactly who is to blame for the persistent abandonment is a matter of argument here.

Some point to the FEMA-led rebuilding bureaucracy, which has proved unequal at times to the challenge of rapidly rebuilding the vast wreckage. Others cite paperwork delays plaguing the state-run "Road Home" program, which -- eventually -- is supposed to distribute federal funds to homeowners.

But the faltering recovery is also tied to the almost primal fear of another inundation. While the Army Corps of Engineers is making massive improvements to the earthen mounds that keep the floodwaters out, many who suffered their failure in Katrina are reluctant to trust the engineers again.

But whatever reasons people have chosen to stay away, their absences are having a staggering effect on St. Bernard Parish.

Neither the Sears, nor the Wal-Mart, nor the Kmart in the parish has reopened. The only hospital and movie theater are closed. So are the two skating rinks and seven of the eight Catholic churches. The neighborhood still lacks phone lines and cable connections.

"The United States is not a Third World country," Anna Simpson, 55, a former neighbor, said in exasperation. "This shouldn't be happening here."

Connections Across Generations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The origins of St. Bernard Parish lie in farming, fishing and shrimping, but by the 1950s, it had evolved into a more conventional suburb of New Orleans.

The population, which was predominantly white and Catholic, was not particularly affluent, but 75 percent of people owned their homes, many of them modest brick houses set close together.

Residents were remarkably clannish. Many people in St. Bernard could boast of having parents or a sibling living within a few houses, and many families had been there for generations.

Darren Dupont's house on Fox Drive was next door to his father's. Phyllis Puglia's on Fawn was a block away from the house she grew up in.

Honie Bauer's father, brother and two sisters had all lived within a few miles of one another, some within walking distance.

Now her brother and sister and their families are living in her three-bedroom house on Fox -- nine people, four dogs, two cats and a ferret -- as they rearrange their lives after the storm.

Tall and outgoing, Bauer speaks with the r-less regional accent particular to St. Bernard, which here is pronounced something like "Sayn Bin-odd." She seemed surprised that families elsewhere might be far-flung geographically. "We all get along," she explained.

"We don't know any other way -- I just don't know any different," she said. "For me to not live near my family would be a struggle."

Those close connections across generations led many to believe that St. Bernard would be one of the first of the flood-ravaged areas to refill with people.

"I knew all along that I'd return," Bauer said.

But as most of her neighbors did, her father, fearing another catastrophe, has left St. Bernard permanently.

"My father thought I was crazy," she said.

Fear Drives Departures
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What's left of Darren Dupont's brick house is just the concrete slab it was built upon.

Dupont, 42, a mechanical designer, was born and raised in the neighborhood. Just a year before the storm, he'd bought his first house because it was quiet and within walking distance to a park for his son, Justin, then 10. Less than a block away, too, was the church, St. Robert Bellarmine Catholic, where he had served as an altar boy.

Yet after fleeing Katrina, Dupont decided he would never return.

"My biggest reason for leaving is that I just don't feel it was safe for me and my son," said Dupont, who has moved to Hammond, La. "Never in my wildest imagination did I think something like Katrina would happen. I always knew I lived in a bowl. I just never knew I lived at the bottom of the bowl."

The fear is widespread: Of the 11 households now living elsewhere, nine cited the possibility of another inundation as the primary reason, or one of the primary reasons, for leaving.

As have other residents who were there for Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Darren's father, Erwin, 70, a genial retired air-conditioning technician, has been flooded twice.

"I just didn't want to fight it no more," Erwin Dupont said. "In my mind, Betsy was the benchmark -- I didn't think it could get any worse. But then it did."

St. Bernard extends southeast from New Orleans, threatened by the three bodies of water at its edges: the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River and a shipping channel known as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet -- the "Mr. Go" in local parlance.

"They're in a hard area -- they really are," said Karen Durham-Aguilera, a Corps official, pointing to a map in her office to illustrate the parish's proximity to the Gulf. "I don't blame them at all for being worried."

The Corps is in the midst of a $14.7 billion upgrade to the levees that protect St. Bernard and the New Orleans area. The fate of St. Bernard may lie in whether residents believe that this time they really will be safe.

"I think the Corps mean well," Dupont said. "I just don't think they can ever guarantee you absolute safety."

Sadness Turns to Anger
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel Simpson, 58, is a system programmer at a New Orleans hospital; his wife, Anna, 55, is a nurse. Together they raised three children at their house on Fawn Drive, and they describe themselves as "a middle-class family, doing middle-class things."

Their kids attended the St. Robert Bellarmine School; they played at the nearby playground where Daniel coached baseball, basketball and track; his and her families lived nearby.

"It was wonderful to be there," Daniel said.

They have relocated to Lafayette, but Anna still tears up when they pass the old house on the way to visit friends. "Then I'm miserable the whole way back to Lafayette," she said. "We wanted to be there the rest of our lives."

Now, though, they're mad.

The Simpsons were among the early wave of applicants to "Road Home," a state-run program funded with at least $8 billion in federal money that was supposed to be the linchpin in the rebuilding.

The program promised that homeowners who lacked adequate flood insurance could recoup as much as $150,000 of their flood losses.

But distribution has proven torturously slow, even insulting at times to applicants, making it even less likely that they will return to their homes. Two years out from the devastation, 3,899 of the 16,195 applicants from St. Bernard Parish -- fewer than one-fourth -- have received checks.

To participate, each of the Simpsons had to be photographed and fingerprinted. The extraordinary measures were required to reduce fraud, they were told, but it still rankled.

"We were treated like criminals," Anna said.

It got worse when the appraisers came back and said their $130,000 house was worth $92,000. They haggled and months later got the figure up to $109,000. Then, at last, in April it came up to $130,000. Deducting the flood insurance they had, the program would yield them about $40,000.

More than four months later, they haven't seen a check. The paperwork is still being processed, they've been told.

"I'm furious at the process," Daniel said.

"I feel like I have aged 10 years," Anna said. "It's unbelievable how difficult this has been."

"We call it the Road to Nowhere," Daniel said.

'We Lost Everything All at Once'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Mark Benfatti, an affable restaurateur who has left St. Bernard, mulls over what has happened to his life, he often thinks of "Gilligan's Island."

"You know, when the hurricane was coming, I packed for three days," he said. "And, just like Gilligan, I never got home."

Benfatti and his wife, Donna, like thousands of people from St. Bernard, have moved to one of the communities on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

Many of those who fled for the north shore find it more affluent but more impersonal, too, and Benfatti sorely missed seeing familiar faces.

So, earlier this month, he and his wife hosted a $25-a-head St. Bernard reunion party. After renting a hall and a band, they wondered if anyone would show up.

More than 750 people got tickets, filling the hall, and then the Benfattis closed the waiting list after it reached 50. The party was supposed to start at 8 p.m., but the parking lot began to fill at 7.

"If somebody dies, you miss that person. But you still got your job, you have your neighbors, you have your family," Benfatti said. "Here we lost everything all at once. We can never put back the community."

Okay, um... is it too late to post on the blog about the New Orleans- One Brick trip? I'm hoping to have my photos up on Flickr sometime by the end of the year, so relatively I'm quite early by contributing to the blog only a couple weeks after the trip actually ended. Right?

But even though I'm late, I really wanted to put a little something on here- because really, the New Orleans trip is one of my favorite things I've ever done. I served as a Peace Corps volunteer from 2004 until my completion of service last year, and since then it's really been a struggle to feel like I'm doing something meaningful. Finding that "oh my gosh, I'm helping the world and making some hot cash" job post-return didn't really pan out the way I'd hoped, and I've really missed the feeling of doing something I'm proud of and that makes me feel like I'm doing something good for the world. It's so frustrating sometimes that I don't even know what to do. A trip like this was just what I needed in my life, and at just the right time.

Because I was living in the jungle of Suriname at the time Katrina took place, I never really felt like I had a true grasp of the severity of the situation. I understood that it was terrible and everything, that the relief effort was botched and mishandled, and what an awful time it was for the entire country... but I just couldn't really feel it. Then a few months ago I rented Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke" documentary, and finally felt like I was getting an understanding of things- and then when my friend Melissa brought up the One Brick trip to me, I knew it was something I had to do. I was lucky that many generous friends and family helped me out cash-wise, and it made me feel extra good that I was once again doing something that I knew made people proud of me. That means so much to me and motivates me in so many ways.

I know that the work I did in New Orleans did not single-handedly save anyone's life- and I repeatedly had the thought, "thank God I'm a volunteer because sure as hell no one is ever going to pay me for my shoddy workmanship". I often felt like I was pulling out more nails than I was actually putting in, and my work behind the electric drill was truly shameful. But that's not what it was about for me, not entirely. It was so important for me to be part of a group of passionate, dedicated, aware people like the other One Brick volunteers- for such respectable individuals to accept and respect me as part of their group- it convinced me that even though I am far from a master carpenter, I must have been doing something right in being there, and making the contribution that I was sent there to make.

Tonight at my crappy restaurant job, I was able to meet a mother and daughter who were visiting from New Orleans, and they told me their story, and I was able to talk with some knowledge about the situation, and tell them my feelings, and know that I saw a small part of what they saw, first hand and in person. That meant so much to me. It was hard for me to keep from getting choked up, and I felt so lucky to have been able to meet them, and it touched me to see their appreciation, as it did to see the appreciation of the residents of the New Orleans area that I was able to meet on the trip.

Sometimes it's easy to forget or not acknowledge just how much and in how many ways I've been blessed. I may not be much with a hammer and nails, but God gave me two arms and two legs that were able to take me on this journey. God guided me safely to New Orleans and safely back, and gave me the receptivity to truly love and appreciate this experience. If I didn't express gratitude for this everyday, I don't think I could live with myself. And I'm glad for that- my sense of gratitude towards God and the world around me is one of my fundamental beliefs, and it makes me the person I'm proud to be.

Thank you to the One Brick coordinators for organizing and overseeing the trip; to my fellow volunteers who made the time there such a blast; to the people of New Orleans for their warm welcome; to the friends and family who supported me, both through their financial contributions and their words of support; and to those out there who read this, thanks for hearing me out. My trip to New Orleans was one more blessing in a lifetime of incredible blessings, and I am so honored to have been able to have had this experience.

During the course of a week working on the same stage of the same house, it can sometimes seem like you're just not getting anywhere. There's more drywall to put up, more walls to mud and sand, more tiles to lay, etc.

Within a single week, while you know you're getting something done, and you can see the difference from the beginning of the week to the end, you don't get to necessarily really see progress.

Before leaving New Orleans, I visited the house we worked on in the beginning of May. It's nearly complete now! The walls are painted, tile floors throughout and the bathrooms and kitchen are almost done.

Here's a little look at the before and after:

And some more photos from around the house we worked on...

When Cupid Shuffle (a song by a Louisiana artist) comes on the radio, work often pauses for a dance. Below are volunteers dancing after finish nailing the floor:

Click below for a video of volunteers dancing:

Below is the music video to dance to at home; lyrics are here

During One Brick's trip in May '07, a group of us left a stack of bottled water, Lifesavers, and this note for Americorps:On One Brick's return trip in July '07, we discovered Americorps' reply on the other side:Thanks to Mitch for taking the photos.

I think Dave summed it up pretty well. They also came back again on Thursday, Aug 2 for a catfish fry. Thank you James and Stone for the fantastic food!


http://www.justin.tv/onebrick/9908

http://www.justin.tv/onebrick/9906