Ah, spring break—a cherished time for us Midd students to escape the routine and unwind. Little did I anticipate that my decision to participate in a InterVarsity Christian Fellowship service trip to New Orleans would expose me to profound human tragedy and adversity. Yet amidst these challenges, I witnessed the remarkable resilience of the human spirit.
On the first day of work, our van stopped where the road was blocked off due to construction, and we hopped out of the car. On the front porch of a yellow house was a man with a big smile waving at our group. We spent our week painting and working on the flooring of James’ house in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, which was hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Before arriving in New Orleans on the spring break service trip, one question loomed in my mind: If Hurricane Katrina happened so long ago and people have been working to rebuild for the past 19 years, how is recovery still ongoing? After the first couple of days, it became clear how historical, ecological and racial factors contributed to the overarching situation of the neighborhoods impacted by the hurricane. The road to recovery has been long and slow, but through hard work and perseverance, New Orleans is being restored. The value of serving others teaches so much; we learn through experience and listening to other people’s stories, something we cannot get from being inside a classroom.
InterVarsity partnered with the nonprofit Lowernine.org, which gathers volunteers to help with rebuilding houses and distributing donated food around the Lower Ninth Ward. This neighborhood is located next to the New Orleans Canal, which connects the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain. Skilled, retired workers dedicate their time to teaching and empowering volunteers to work on houses impacted by the hurricane that broke the levee along the Industrial Canal and devastated this neighborhood, populated almost entirely by African Americans with over half living below the average mean income in the area. With a lack of government support, the Lower Ninth Ward has had a long rebuilding journey compared to more affluent neighborhoods in New Orleans, but through the hard work of volunteers, houses have been on their way to restoration.
The yellow one-story house we helped to reconstruct had steps leading up to a nice porch swing. Inside lay a homey living room with a hallway extending back to a room with blue walls. The house used to be two stories, but the hurricane flooded and destroyed the top floor. Our group stepped into the dusty room with unfinished work and half empty paint buckets. The bathroom was a splotchy cream color fading to yellow, with outlets out of their sockets and dusty floors waiting for new flooring. Over the course of a week, we painted the bathroom, closet and laundry room white, and installed flooring in the bedroom and closet. This process required us to each learn how to use the power saw and drills to cut the pieces of wooden flooring to make pieces that fit the room. Learning how to use power tools like these for building was a more special skill to have compared to the mundane, everyday typing of a student.
Each day everyone at James’ house brought bagged lunch sandwiches out to the front porch and discussed our thoughts on the trip so far. On the second day, we took an almost three hour lunch break. Despite having just one day of volunteering together at that point, we shared stories of hurt that led to new direction in life, asked questions about dealing with hardships and expressed stories as personal as overcoming suicidal thoughts.
Our mixed group included students from many different colleges who grew up in California, Boston and all the way to Mongolia. Nonetheless, we all ended up in New Orleans and found a place of connection as we worked alongside each other to bring brightly painted walls and smooth flooring to James’ house. By leaving everything that weighed us down during the semester and seeing people for who they are, the fact that we just met the day before became insignificant. We were all present in the moment intently listening to what people were willing to share and wanting to support one another. With the slower pace of physical work in a city far away from and far different than Middlebury, I learned a lot from everyone’s individual story of how they worked through hardships that I would not have heard about on campus.
While our conversation ended with teary-eyed hugs, our lunch break continued as we went to get snow cones. We chatted lively in pairs during a 10-minute walk to Burnell’s Lower Ninth Ward Market. Shortly after arriving, owner Burnell Cotlon himself came out and started to give us a tour around his store. He spoke quickly and passionately, telling us to try new things. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “Find out your reason.” Cotlon poured his life savings into rebuilding the building, which was demolished by the hurricane. His eagerness was demonstrated through each story he told us.
“You only live once — that’s not true. You only die once. You live everyday,” he said enthusiastically. Cotlon invested his efforts in learning how to do the electrical wiring and lay down concrete in the kitchen area himself to save money. Although he made mistakes, he learned so much through the process and then over time, the store became a place for people to not only buy groceries and food, but also a place in the neighborhood. Some do laundry there, and children without Wi-Fi at home do their homework at the store. By paying attention to the needs of his community and applying himself to fulfill those needs, his store has flourished.
Through volunteering, I got a taste of a New Orleans neighborhood that cultivated a valuable learning environment, learned from people from all over the world and volunteered alongside others to contribute to the recovery of the Lower Ninth Ward community. The volunteer work we did provided opportunities for us to learn about neglected populations that aren’t mentioned in the classroom, hear stories that might not be a newsworthy spotlight and connect with students who I would otherwise never meet.
Restoration doesn’t just happen. It’s an investment of time and care that leads to bringing a community together to recover and move forward. Classrooms talk about stories of overcoming adversity after all the work is done, but what if the time we live through now is part of that overcoming? What if we could also be empowered to take part in the restoration of communities that need it? What if instead of talking about problems in society, we stepped into spaces where people experience them? We could understand how to serve others around us and learn from new environments so that people in our communities are seen, known and cared for.
