Today was our last day of volunteering and my group chose to spend it helping out at the Green Project. The Green Project takes everything from recycled paint to used doors to tiles and sells them back to the community for significantly marked down prices. They are most well known for recycling old paint. If it weren't for their efforts in that a lot of paint would end up going down the drain, which is incredibly toxic. I spent the first half of our morning there going through tiles and throwing away the broken ones that had no chance of selling. I thought that this was incredibly interesting, as I came across a plethora of designs and shapes. Each tile made me think about who had previously owned it and what kinds of trials they had gone through. The second half of my morning working with the Green Project I helped out in the lumber yard. Four other volunteers from our group and I worked on moving huge piles of lumber from one point to another, as well as rearranged some roofing tiles. I immensesly enjoyed this and the fact that moving the lumber was physically strenuous. To be honest, when I imagined this trip beforehand, that kind of labor is what I had been expecting. Therefore, this was my favorite part of the whole trip (other than being a master cutter of insulation). I am very thankful to have been able to help the community of New Orleans, even if what our group did was nothing more than housekeeping. I truly believe that every little bit counts.
After working at the Green Project, one of our advisors, Patrick, took us on a short tour of a few key spots in the Katrina incident. For me, this was an incredibly interesting and beneficial expedition. I saw all the images and news that flashed across my family's television when the hurricane slammed into New Orleans. However, having seen the part of the flood wall that failed, and having heard about the true reason behind why New Orleans was so badly affected, Katrina has been made so much more real and concrete. It's horrifying for me to think that human negligence is the explanation for so many annihilated homes, so many lost lives, and so many displaced families. It angers me that it was pure carelessness which caused such a large amount of pain and suffering. However, I believe what happened that infamous day in New Orleans' history has served as a great wake-up call to those who made the flood wall. A lot of new construction has been done in improving the wall, from using a different kind of wall that has better support, to installing a flood pad to avoid erosion of the protected side of the wall. I'm very happy to see so many people coming together to try and create a better life for those who chose to come back to New Orleans.
Overall, this trip has been an incredible experience for me. Thinking back on what I had been envisioning this trip to be, it has turned out to be nothing like what I anticipated. It has been so much better than anything I could have forseen. I feel much more connected with the community of New Orleans, and want to continue helping everyone here when I can. Should anyone ask me, I would tell them spending my spring break in NOLA, rather than raging on the beach in South Padre, was the best possible choice I could have made. I am not leaving this trip the same as when we started our drive from Missouri. Helping these people who were affected by what happened during Katrina is amazing, and I love knowing that my group's combined efforts have made a difference. I would do it all over again in a hearbeat.
-Julie Irene Barnum-
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