Livin' in Da Parish

So were now 4 weeks into our project here in St. Bernard Parish (or as the locals call it- 'da Parish"), right outside New Orleans proper, reaching our halfway mark through the Super Badgers' first spike, and it definitely has been a learning experience for all of us.

First, though, as I like to always do, a little background about our project and envrions. Our Project for this first round has been the Serve Green Initiative, operating out of Camp Hope 3, where we both live and work.

Serve Green was techincally started a year ago, however, what really got it off the ground was an AmeriCorps NCCC composite team from the Pacific Region Campus. They started here in January and all they had to start was a whiteboard of ideas and a messy office. Then 2 months later, they got the Super Badgers to take it over. With less than the slightest idea of what we'd be doing here at Serve Green, we were more than appreciative to have a 2 week transition with the Sacramento composite team.

A lot of that transition came with a lot of learning, like how to motivate a group of volunteers to plant baby cypress trees into a swamp with a lot of muck (some days were easier than others), or how to organize our efforts in the office to make sure we had projects for a group of 50+ people to do on a particular day.

Some days have been awesome, some dreadful, some filled with anticipation, some with excitement, but overall it has been a great experience so far. A plus so far has been the interaction we've gotten with other AmeriCorps teams, including Perry Point's own Badger 5, the Camp Hope kitchen crew (a well-deserved shout out to them), and the other Sacramento teams that were here during our transition- the Serve Green composite (you guys are all awesome), Gold 3, and Silver 5. At the beginning, we had a veritiable AmeriVillage at Camp Hope (RIP AmeriVillage).

So now we're set up living in Camp Hope's parking lot, in a Operation Orphan Grain Train shipping container we've dubbed The Bunker, eating 3 square meals a day (2 provided by Badger 5), and doing our best to keep up with our volunteers, and doing different projects at different places each day of the week. We've each taken leads on serveral projects old, have been getting out into Da Parish, trying to find new projects to work on. A lot of our work revolves around talking to to people and networking, as it seems that if you meet several important people around these parts, they seem to know most other people.

Probably trhe most enjoyable part of the project are the people you meet, both volunteers and the people of St. Bernard, who have always been welcoming and gracious to us. You never know when you'll be touched, either by their hospitality, their honesty, or by their resilence in coming back to the place they call home. Every home in St. Bernard was touched by the hurricane, and everyone has a story to tell, some times funny, some times heart-rending, but always hopeful.