NOLA - Transformation and Camp Hope

Our first work project on Monday was at Camp Hope. This is a facility run by Habitat for Humanity, that used to be a school. A school transformed into a facility to house Katrina volunteers. Somehow, the word transformed has always had a positive meaning to me, but in this case it is depressing that a SCHOOL is now a FACILITY FOR HOUSING VOLUNTEERS. Picture on the left is the emptied 18 wheeler.

It was good that we all got to go together on this first project. Here are our 19 wonderful youth (copied from Lizzie's facebook album). If you do the counting, there is one hiding over on the right of the picture!

Our task was to unload an 18-wheeler of the 100 beds and to assemble those beds into 4 rooms, of 25 beds each. We heard a rumor that the beds came from an army base.

There were 2 different kinds of beds, and it took the engineers among the youth to figure that out, and to put the proper pieces into the proper beds. John used this opportunity to teach some young women how to run a power saw, as we had to cut up dowels to fit the bunk beds together. One parent specifically asked that their youth NOT run power equipment. Can you believe that a parent would not want them to run chain saws and drills and saws? ;< ) In our evening circle, many of the comments were about how well everyone worked together, but also how much fun they had, jumping on mattress, and pushing each other on carts, up and down the halls. There is definitely going to be a balance between work and fun. That was the only way to make it through some of the days was to have lots of levity. Each day we made sandwiches for the day. We had bologna and PB&J on this day. We also had bologna for breakfast the first 2 days. As the cook said, you guys eat whatever someone donates to us. It was amazing that they made all of our meals from donated food. Melissa and I also went out to buy fruit and granola bars for the group. Youth were begging for fruit. We also met James on our first day. He works for Operation Nehemiah, and he works really, really hard. He moved down after Katrina, works for a stipend and then goes home to renovate his 8 room house. On our way home, we tried to find one of the houses that the group gutted last year. Since we could not find the house, it might be that it has indeed been torn down. I am sure that happens but would have been hard for our group from last year, to realize that it might not be around. HEY, that might happen to us too, with a house we work on. YUCKY! Home for dinner, and then the obligatory walk into the French Quarter and stop at Cafe du Monde for beignets and cafe au lait. It is ironic to see people who do not have houses, to see the homeless waiting for their breakfast and then to spend $1.82 on 3 beignets. Oh well. Lights out and Quiet time at 10. There are 3 groups of women in our dorm. One of our youth was heard to say "What part of quiet do you not understand?" after the third request for quiet.