Amazing opportunities

This trip has been a week filled with opportunities to be witnesses to the people and the city of New Orleans. The past few days I've had a blast at the two organizations I was able to work for.The first was a recycling center called The Arc. Their work includes several aspects that help many people and give back to the community. The biggest operation there is the Mardi Gras bead recycling center which takes in literally tons of donations of beads and trinkets used for the various parades during carnival season in NOLA. The Arc also houses the Vintage Garden and Vintage Garden Soup Kitchen. They have a large garden that provides fresh vegetables to the local community and the ingredients for their soups. In addition to the environmental concern, the best part of the organization is that they employ a large number of people with disabilities. We got to work side by side with very warm, welcoming, and super excited staff. I was very fortunate to return for a second day which was all the more better because of the amazing people we got to meet on the first day.
Today, January 12, I volunteered at another recycling center called the Green Project. They also have a very environmentally friendly conscience by recycling anything that can be used to build and or repair houses. Their facility includes a showroom full of windows, doors, sinks, etc as well as a paint recycling room. I chose to volunteer in the lumber yard today with Britt, Jamie, Chelsea V, and Kayla. We ended up with an awesome supervisor who was very laid back and friendly. The work environment was very Zen as Jamie would say and we both found ourselves commenting on how relaxing and nice it was to be working outside with jazz music coming from the radio. The lumber yard required us to unload donations and load customers trucks. For the most part we were de-nailing wood boards which was pretty easy and fun. I'm a fan of hands on work especially carpentry. Best part was hearing a first hand account story of the storm and its aftermath from a local who was also volunteering. He provided Jamie and I a very raw nerve wrenching account of what is was like being in the city during the week after the hurricane. Truly a testament to how tragic and inhumane the whole situation was. What I took away from his story was the need for organized damage control and prevention for catastrophes. People clearly panic and resort to survival of the fittest attitudes in situations as dreadful as hurricane Katrina. No agency really took charge of the area and without immediate help and relief people were forced to fend for themselves. Sadly when that happens, the ruthlessness and dark side of humans are unleashed. The man we spoke to keep saying that "if you weren't living with blood in your eyes, you wouldn't have survived down here." I mean imagine how frightening is to see your whole city under water and already in distress and then having to worry about people committing crimes and taking advantage of others while people are dying in the streets and babies go without nourishment. I couldn't help but think that if their was a centralized effort with an immediate organized plan off action that a lot of the horrific events during the following days would have been less common.
Future relief and rescue efforts in any situation need to put people first without hesitation. Too many logistics get in the way of of the basic principals of humanity which is helping others. When we learn to put others before ourselves is when we are capable of changing this world