Asking for help means you\'re strong, it means you came back to your city and you want to survive. I spent this week working on the Second Wind project, soliciting small business owners throughout every corner of New Orleans that was still standing. We were asking them to sign onto this initiative, to support each other, so that they can get the grant money the federal government has promised NO and promised them. And they deserve it - because they\'re fierce, and they\'ve come back to a city to try and reclaim their lives. They\'ve come back when a lot of other people who own businesses next to theirs have not. They\'ve stuck around when their SBA loans were denied. When their insurance companies only threw them a portion of what they were entitled to. And when business was lagging - by 80%.\r\n\r\nI\'ve felt a conflict about working on this project while other BLS students were advocating against the constitutional violations inflicted on people who were sitting in jail for the past 6 months. I\'ve asked myself whether I feel like I didn\'t work hard enough, because I spent most of the week talking to the business owners, and not reading cases. But yesterday our portion of the solicitation was over, and we had an extra hour to walk around the french quarter...we walked into a small clothing store with an Australian theme to it. The owners asked us what we were doing down here (because they were friendly) and we mentioned that we had been volunteering with some small businesses. The two owners got excited and asked if we were talking about Second Wind. When we said yes, they spent 30 minutes telling us how they were threatened with eviction notices before they were even allowed back into the city, how their savings were gone and they were just hanging on. But this project made sense to them, and they needed people to help organize the community so that they could fight together, for themselves, to revive New Orleans.\r\n\r\nI wasn\'t reading cases all week, but I was charmed and awed by this city, and I believe in them.\r\n\r\nOriginally posted: http://bls-shn.blogspot.com/2006/03/asking-for-help-doesnt-mean-youre-weak.html