June 9, 2008 ~ Orientation

June 9, 2008. Its time to get to business. After a hearty breakfast of muffins and biscuits it was time to leave for the Holy Cross Neighborhood, our base of operations for the summer. John and Brain pick us up from the B&B and we head to the Holy Cross neighborhood church. There we meet Rudy and Laura and introduce ourselves to them. The brief overview explains our mission and purpose there in the Holy Cross Neighborhood. We get a quick tour, which includes a drive by on Brad Pitts Global Green House only a block away from our base of operations at the church.

While looking at the neighborhood we were told that the damage that we saw was not due to the levees breaking during Hurricane Katrina, rather it was years of abandonment prior to Katrina mixed with the ignorance of outsiders who didn't know the difference. Many of the houses in Holy Cross have survived years of hurricane with minimal damage, but Katrina was different. After the levees broke Holy Cross only got about 2-4 feet of water and the residents were forced to evacuate. With no residents to protect the houses left behind. Outsiders came in to salvage the "damaged" homes. Our job this summer will be to help restore the homes to bring back the residents to help protect the historical heritage of the buildings. And by doing such we will assist in helping the neighborhood sustain itself once again. It was all very intense.

Our afternoon consisted of a tour of the French Quarter which was intense, but in a whole different way.

Our evening ended with a welcome dinner, drinks, and dancing in the Quarter.