I am resurrecting the old blog. In October I will be leaving for India and I am going to keep this blog while I’m there. I should however, get in the habit of updating it before I leave because otherwise it will end up being alone and neglected. For instance, who knew that I had updated it while I was in Jerusalem? Not me. And I didn’t get anywhere in the epic saga of my experience with my flatmate Nina.
To give some context to my life since my time in Venice: In the summer of 2007 I spent 6 weeks in Jerusalem studying Biblical Hebrew. I graduated from college in 2008 and I have spent the past 11 months as an AmeriCorps volunteer in New Orleans, LA.
I work specifically for a non-profit called Rebuilding Together New Orleans (RTNO), an affiliate of the national organization of Rebuilding Together. RT organizations around the country generally concentrate on getting locals involved in community service by doing home repairs. However, due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina, working for RTNO is completely different from working for any of the other branches of RT. (Sorry for the acronyms. It can get confusing.) While other RTs only work with volunteers for one month of the year, we work year round. We also do not only focus on minor home repairs. We do everything from only an exterior scrape and paint or building a handicap ramp to full rebuilds; it depends on the needs of each individual home and the resources and funds available for each.
So who do we serve primarily? The elderly, disabled, lower-income, and first responders. Typically for every 100 applicants we accept 1. It’s a long application process involving a lot of paperwork and an evaluation of the home to determine what work needs to be done on the house. In addition, we only work on homes that are the primary residence of the homeowner. We do not work on houses that are being rented out.
In addition, RTNO works in specific neighborhoods of New Orleans. These are Broadmoor, Hollygrove, St. Roch, Treme, and Holy Cross. To most of you those names mean nothing so later hopefully I will remember to put up some interesting information about each but right now that would just be a tangent. We recently added two more neighborhoods – Gentilly and Mid-City – and are currently recruiting applicants to start working there. Each of these neighborhoods has a strong neighborhood association and has invited us to work in their community. Importantly, RTNO does not force itself onto communities; we only work in neighborhoods that show that they want our help and have shown initiative to start the rebuilding process themselves. For example, Broadmoor is located in one of the lowest points in the city and after Katrina the government wanted to bulldoze the neighborhood and turn it into a green space. However, the neighborhood banded together to prevent that from happening and now we’ve helped restore about 45 homes in Broadmoor since 2005.
Now what do I do through AmeriCorps? I am an AmeriCorps Direct, which means I work on site, doing the actual reconstruction of homes and managing volunteer groups. What my day generally looks like is this:
7:30 am – arrive at our warehouse and make sure we have all the supplies we need for the day/week.
8:00 am – drive out to site with a team of AmeriCorps.
8:30 am – volunteers arrive and we work until 3:15ish.
3:30 pm – leave the site to return to the warehouse.
4:00 pm – arrive at the warehouse and pull supplies that we will need for the next day.
4:30 pm – go home.

I think that a description of my job deserves an entire entry by itself. Suffice it to say, I love my job