June 28, 2006\r\n\r\n I have just returned from spending 6 1/2 days on the Gulf Coast assisting in Hurricane Katrina Relief efforts with 74 student and adult volunteers from Jackson, Michigan. I am a volunteer coordinator with the National Relief Network (www.nrn.org), a non-profit organization that has brought volunteers to federally-declared disaster areas to assist in clean-up and reconstruction endeavors for the past several years. Hurricane Katrina caused such widespread destruction that the vast majority of our trips since last fall have traveled to various locations along the Gulf Coast to aid families and communities in rebuilding their lives. I had been told by other NRN staff members that the devastation was horrific and hard to imagine, and I had seen the footage on TV, but these warnings prepared me neither for the despair of people who lost almost everything from family members to homes and businesses nor for the empty neighborhoods squatting like modern-day ghost towns all along the path of destruction.\r\n\r\nOn this most recent trip, we (our 74 volunteers, another volunteer coordinator, Mary, and myself) spent three days working in the vicinity of Mobile, Alabama and three days in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. South of Mobile lie several small, rural towns of the type where if you blink, you may miss it as you travel down to the coast. These towns are peopled with residents who have missed out on the generous donations of the American people and the aid from the federal government. Yet they have not been forgotten by everyone. A grassroots organization called \"Savin\' Our Self\" has stepped in to address the needs of these communities. I had the privilege to meet, work, and dine with Vivian Felts, the Gulf Coast Director of S.O.S. (www.savinourself.org). Vivian operates S.O.S. on a shoestring budget, but as she told me, God always comes through for her whenever she feels her lowest. Local politics play a large role in why the people of Coden (the town where my volunteers performed their service) haven\'t received much help since last August. Vivian has been one of the few people to demand action on the part of these local politicians. Since most of the people whom Vivian serves are poor, local politicians have ignored their requests for aid. The people of Coden sit on prime real estate that could bring the state of Alabama much revenue in the form of condominiums and casinos, but most of the citizens of Coden have lived there for generations supporting themselves off of what was once a prosperous fishing industry.\r\n\r\nI, along with 31 of our volunteers, worked with an extended family who had owned their own seafood industry for over 25 years. Hurricane Katrina leveled their business and three of the family\'s homes. This family, led by matriarch Hilda Nelson, has been trying to clear this debris by themselves since last fall. My volunteers were the first to come to their assistance. Ms. Nelson and her family had been promised help in a variety of forms but no agency, NGO or otherwise, ever followed through on their promises until S.O.S. and Vivian Felts came along. Because of the stress of the hurricane and the complete devastation of her home and business, Ms. Nelson has suffered through three heart attacks in less than a year, and when I spoke with her, I could tell that she had about run out of hope. My volunteers, with their hard work and growing affection for the Nelson family, restored hope to this woman and her family. Although we only worked with the Nelson family for two days, the area where they wanted to rebuild was almost \r\nunrecognizable after we completed our service. We cleared great piles of timber and cinder blocks, braved giant spiders and rats, and found and resurrected the business sign for \"Nelson and Sons Seafood Company.\" It was truly a life-changing experience for many of my volunteers.\r\n\r\nAfter finishing our service in Coden, our entire group traveled to Chalmette, Louisiana to gut houses and prepare neighborhoods for repopulation. In Chalmette, businesses are just starting to reappear. Walgreens, along with a few gas stations, constitutes the economic foundation of the area, and if people have returned to the area, they are living in trailers (not necessarily provided by FEMA) set in front of their homes where they either work on their houses themselves or wait for volunteers assigned by the parish government to arrive. Chalmette is located in St. Bernard Parish, north of New Orleans. The entire Parish was flooded with 5-12 feet of water when the levees along the Mississippi River and the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain collapsed from the storm surge of Hurricane Katrina. Only two homes were left untouched by the flooding in a parish where over 67,000 people lived. Even after 10 months, only a few hundred people are living in their pre-Katrina homes. To hear that you will be gutting homes and to have the process described does not compare to the reality of a house thrown into chaos by floodwaters and then left for 10 months to rot in the tropical heat and to become infested by all types of vermin.\r\n\r\nThe NRN volunteers courageously entered these homes equipped with hard hats, safety glasses, air masks, shovels, and sledgehammers. Our volunteers sifted through the debris for family pictures and keepsakes to give back to homeowners, and many of them reflected on what their own homes might look like after such a disaster. While one volunteer made a comment about the amount of stuff one home was filled with, another volunteer reminded her about the amount of clothes she had back home. We then had a conversation about how these homeowners had placed themselves in a vulnerable situation, allowing volunteers to enter their homes and rummage through the contents of their lives, and our job was not to judge these contents but to provide the homeowners with a clean and safe basic shelter from which they could remake their homes. The NRN volunteers cleared out moldy furniture and clothing; refrigerators, freezers, and pantries full of rotted food (hence the name for the area: the Big Stinky); rotting drywall; built in cabinets and cupboards; and left the outside walls, the roof, the concrete floor, and the studs outlining the rooms within the house. After three days of intensive labor, we gutted 8 homes. Many of our volunteers, on the bus ride back to Michigan, reassessed their own lives, expressing gratitude for a home to return to, one with running, hot water and electricity and air conditioning, one stocked with good food and comfortable, clean furniture.\r\n\r\nNo matter what you have heard or seen or read, the Gulf Coast in many areas is not rebounding. While there are many people directing their efforts on rebuilding, the work is far from finished, and these areas need your help. While donations are great and raising our voices is necessary, what the Gulf Coast really needs is volunteers! Six months ago, 2600 volunteers a month were streaming into St. Bernard Parish and that stream has become a trickle of only 800 a month. Collective amnesia has struck again as it has with every catastrophe or tragedy that has been swept aside for the next big thing. I am writing this to keep people from forgetting. The National Relief Network has been aiding in Hurricane Katrina Relief since last fall, and we estimate that we still have two years of work to do in St. Bernard Parish.