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UUCF Volunteers Share Rebuilding Ministry in New Orleans

In a ministry of presence and solidarity, 12 UUCF members and friends spent the week of January 5-12 helping two New Orleans residents rebuild.

The team included UUCF members Don Andress, Barb Brehm, Janet Greene, Mary Lareau, Kären Rasmussen, Dan Rothbart, and Robin Sanford. Terri Conti and Shawn Green, regular UUCF visitors, and friends Peter Younes, Alexandria; Kristie Price, Asheville, NC; and Allen Cermak, Atlanta, also joined the group.

The team of 12 visited New Orleans as part of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee’s (UUSC) Gulf Coast Volunteer Program. The volunteers stayed primarily in dorm-style housing provided by the UUSC at the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of New Orleans (FUUNO).

The UUSC split the team between two project: “Team Viola Washington,” and “Team Mary Boyd,” named after each of our hosts.

Team Viola Washington

Seven members of the UUCF group, including Jane Thickstun, minister at the UU Fellowship in Midland, MI, made up Team Viola Washington. The home is in the Tulane/Gravier neighborhood due west of the French Quarter, a predominately low-income area where the majority of residents pre-Katrina were renters. Viola, executive director of the Welfare Rights Organization (WRO), had been using the house for WRO offices. The WRO was organized in 1980 to support economic justice for families receiving welfare and other social services.

The house is a double shotgun, a common New Orleans variation of the duplex. WRO has moved back in and is using half of the house for its offices. The other half will be transitional housing for a family on its way back home. Viola, her husband, James, the WRO staff, and many volunteers have worked on the house over the past year. When our team arrived, electricity, running water, and plumbing had been installed. Our group sanded and painted the front porch, re-secured porch railings, screened former pigeon roosts, installed door closers on all three screen doors, and improved the threshold under one, painted house numbers over the two front doors, sanded 3/4 of the sides of the house and painted 1/4, weeded and dug out the garden in back, took out part of a dead tree, replaced hinges and hasps on the gate, installed and grouted tile flooring, hung several doors, installed a door lock, installed wooden or tile thresholds in doorways, hung kitchen cabinets, cut countertops for sinks, repaired toilets, installed baseboards, patched drywall, painted indoor walls, and created and installed a cover for attic access. The list is not exhaustive, but is probably close.

“At the end of our week,” says Don Andress, “I was more conscious of what still needed to be done than of what we had done. Still, the people we had done the work for were so very appreciative. James had shown us what to do and had worked with us as our leader the first two days, taking time off from his job. He was present for goodbyes and recognition, and I felt individually blessed, as a man, by a man.”

Team Mary Boyd

Team Mary Boyd also had seven volunteers, including Cid Rivera, the brother of our UUSC coordinator, Candice Rivera. Retiree Mary Boyd, had raised her lovely family in a single shotgun home in Broadmoor. Broadmoor is a low- to middle-income neighborhood where people have grown up with each other for generations. Only about a third of the homes in this neighborhood are currently being worked on. Mary’s home had been under six feet of water for more than a week and had to be completely gutted. Thanks to hundreds of volunteer hours, the house has transformed into a modified shotgun with individual rooms off of a hall. By the time we arrived, walls, windows, and subflooring had been installed. Our job was to lay down laminate wood flooring throughout the house. The so-called “click in place” flooring turned out to be “force and hammer” flooring, so the task definitely earned our respect.

Mrs. Boyd, her son, Kevin, and granddaughter, Shenita, visited us at work in her home every day, bringing us homecooked meals and refreshments. Even after an emotional evacuation, a year and a half of living in Dallas and Sacramento, Mrs. Boyd is positive and hopeful for her future. With help from more volunteers, she should be back in her home within a year.

“You do feel as if you’ve made only a miniscule contribution, but connecting with people who love their community so much, you completely understand why this is the place they want to live and you want to help them get back to their lives,” says Mary Lareau.

While the connection to New Orleans people and neighborhoods enriched our group both spiritually and emotionally, we also loved being in community with each other—sharing a unique and rewarding experience.

We are so grateful to three UUCF members who supported our trip monetarily. Their generous gifts helped defray the costs of transportation in the city. Many thanks to Ira Hamburg and an anonymous couple who sent this statement with their contribution: “We look at the opportunities for giving that come through the church—even a spontaneous, unsolicited one like this—as a way to participate, especially when our schedules or jobs prevent us from participating more directly. But those of you who went and did the actual work really deserve the credit.”

Web Resources

Times-Picayune “Flash Flood—Hurricane Inundation of New Orleans, August 29, 2005”: http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/flashflood.swf

Times-Picayune graphic depiction of the history and future of the Louisiana wetlands: http://www.nola.com/speced/lastchance/multimedia/flash.ssf?flashlandloss1.swf

Impact of Katrina on First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of New Orleans:

http://www.firstuuno.org/mainwebsite_html/katrinaswake.html

Community Church Unitarian Universalist was submerged for two weeks after the storm. The church has been completely gutted and services are now being held in a home next door: http://www.communitychurchuu.org/articles/photokatrina.htm

The Impact of Katrina: Race and Class in Storm-Damaged Neighborhoods: http://www.s4.brown.edu/Katrina/report.pdf

Greater New Orleans Community Data Center: http://www.gnocdc.org/

UUSC Gulf Coast Volunteer Program: http://www.uusc.org/gulfcoastvolunteerprogram/

Description of the “shotgun” style of architecture prevalent in New Orleans neighborhoods: http://www.gnocdc.org/tertiary/shotgun.html

Make it Right Project Web site: http://www.makeitrightnola.org/mir_SUB.php?section=mir&page=main