I’m going to tell you in a little bit how to volunteer with Commonground in New Orleans. Let me give a little bit of the layout of the land right now, emotionally speaking.
It’s not easy, because the primary emotion you will begin to feel is one of grief. Even if you aren’t from here. Even if you’d never set foot in the city. You’ll feel the grief emanating from the dried, caked mud in the ninth ward, from the faces of people not sure of the future.
You’ll also notice and feel a dogged determination, and anger, like the emotions displayed by Leah Hodges and Mama D in Congress day before yesterday. They did my heart proud with their refusal to relinquish their beliefs and point of view in the face of a kind of state sanctioned harrassment.
New Orleans is dry now, and she’s hurting, but she needs people. She needs people to come to be a witness and testify to others what this manmade disaster has wrought.
New Orleans is what happens after years and years of neglect of our wetlands, of our levees, of our infrastructure.
And if you say it can’t happen where you live, I suggest you pack your bags now and get out while you can.
New Orleans is what happens when the priority of a nation turns away from the needs of the people, when a people fall asleep and allow the theft of a treasury.
We’re waking up now. In New Orleans, the dead were awakened when the flood engulfed the old tombs of our ancestors. The ancestors are angry because their old places of roaming and worship are destroyed, whole blocks and neighborhoods. Where will the ghosts roam now? Where will the people live?
They are talking about buying the land and homes of the working poor in New Orleans. Truth is, every single resident displaced deserves some sort of compensation beyond the measly FEMA money most have had to fight tooth and nail for.
This disaster was manmade. It was in the making years ago when the so-called global economy was born, and jobs were sent overseas, undermining the economic base of our country.
It was in the making when the media was consolidated under a few multi-national companies, limiting debate and discussion in a very, undemocratic like fashion.
It was in the making when we as citizens chose not to participate locally in our community because we were beaten down by cynicism and distrust.
Oh, I was talking about volunteering. Katrina here brought us out of our homes, even the ones not displaced. My family rarely sees me anymore, but I know this is temporary.
We’re starting something here: its called community involvement on a profound, basic level: one on one work.
I would have never met Linda from the B.W. Cooper Housing Development if this storm hadn’t happened. We’ve become sisters in our shared outrage, grief and determination. People are dying out here from grief. The suicide rate is up, suicide threats occuring everyday, double and triple the rate before the storm.
Linda and I are finding, as we sift through the rubble of her B.W. Cooper home, that if we work together and help each other, we’ll find a way. We’ll make it. We’ll never be the same, but we will be stronger for it.
It takes a citizenry to make a nation. Let’s take our nation back, one house at a time.
Here’s how you contact Commonground to volunteer:
Supplies, Distribution, Clean-up/Repair, Volunteer
Volunteer Coordination Phone: (504) 218-6613
Phone: (504) 368-6897
Volunteer Coordination Email: coomongroundvolunteers@gmail.com
General Email: commongroundrelief@gmail.com
Location:
331 Atlantic Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70114
How to get here
These Commonground people have shown up for every single rally we’ve organized to reopen public housing in New Orleans, and to protest the illegal evictions occuring all over the city. We’re learning here of the ties that bind us all, and something beautiful is rising from these ashes.
your willingness to keep writing here about it all is something I cannot thank you enough for.
I have been really remiss in conacting my families around the Austin area because I know things have probably gotten worse for them lately, and I have no idea how to help them or make any of it better. I have made a deal with myself to call all of them next week, just to let them know that I care and to let them talk if they need to….it is frustrating to me that right now, I have nothing else to give.
Your expressions of love and support will help more than you can imagine. Thank you.
Visited site. Looks like a comprehensive and ambitious grassroots relief effort. I laud you and the participants.
Sent the info to everyone on my Florida e-mail list. Gawd knows, we owe these folks for all the help we’ve received from our fellow Americans after innumerable hurricanes.
Thanks — a really worthwile outlet for immediate results on-the-ground activism.
Thanks, duranta.
I’ll keep this diary in mind whenever people want to know what in the world to do. Because I don’t know here in Wisconsin. I truly do not know, even with the cousins returned and the dad in Dallas. I really do not always know.
You’ve done more than anyone on this site to keep the passion stoked for New Orleans and keep everyone informed. Thank you so much.
You’ve done an amazing job of keeping the focus on this, which I think is vital both on an immediate level (pushing hard for relief, volunteering or donating whenever possible to improve conditions in spite of the national ability to perpetually ignore things after the initial crisis) and on a longterm level (addressing poverty and racism in this country, just as a single example).
I don’t think anyone I’ve seen on the blogs has been as persistently on top of this as you have. And it’s really, really important, so I want to thank you immensely. I don’t usually have anything to add to your posts, but I always read them and process them deeply.
None of us really know what to do, but it helps both to see posts like this that are specifically about organizations that are helping and posts like yours that at least help keep us aware that so much seems to need doing.
The neglect of New Orleans exemplifies a national problem: profit before people. It is up to us to change this. No politician running for re-election is going to do it for us.
This is a wonderful diary, Duranta. Thanks for the link, I’ve been hoping for a way to help from a distance. Wish I could be there too. Please keep on sharing the story.
You are simply an inspiration.
Thank you for your passion, for keeping us aware, and for all the good works you do.
thank you for your interest and involvement.
Hi Duranta!
How difficult is it to enter the neighborhoods even as a volunteer. Are the police contractor Blackwater allowing volunteers in or do they have to be connected to the government?
Also where can you find the video of Mama D. I heard it was on C spann.
Please keep reporting.
Thanks
Nice to hear from you. All neighborhoods can be entered with the exception of the lower ninth ward. You have to have an id to get in there, but I have heard of people riding their bikes into that area. Just be aware that you will be asked to leave if you’re discovered.
Blackwater has been seen in New Orleans and surrounding areas since the storm. We encountered them at the river center in Baton Rouge when we visited evacuees. They were providing security for the FEMA center right next to the river center. I think they provided security at the lower ninth ward checkpoint, but I’m not sure about that. I heard reports of them elsewhere, but I’d have to ask around for specifics.
When we encountered them at the river center, my loose tongued activist friend tried to take a picture of one of them who was talking to me. He was told to put the camera away. Then my friend began saying things to him about their involvement in Iraq. To his credit, the guy kept his cool and ignored my friend.