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Volunteer Effort in New Orleans
Last summer when PDS attended the SHRM conference in New Orleans – Pat Palmer, Jeanne Eberly and I discussed the idea to offer a volunteer event during the User Group Association Conference in New Orleans. At that time it was ten months away! With help from the New Orleans Convention Bureau we researched at least 10 different volunteer organizations in New Orleans and chose to work with Beacon of Hope Resource Center. As of last fall, they still had over 300 requests from homeowners needing assistance from the devastation caused by the hurricanes in 2005 and 2006. Still to this day…can you believe it?
We didn’t know what type of response we’d have for volunteers but figured if we even had a hand-full of people sign up it would still be great! Well, bright and early on Sunday morning prior to the UGA Conference Kick Off, 23 of us jumped into two vans and headed to an area about six miles from Harrah’s Hotel where we met our volunteer supervisor, Randy, and homeowner, Kathleen.
We weren’t told until the week before the conference what our project was going to entail so I think most of us assumed that we’d be doing work for an elderly individual and that the area was probably going to be a depressed – maybe not even a safe type of neighborhood. I think we were all surprised when we pulled up the this very pretty two-story home and met the owner, Kathleen - who was young, single and a busy realtor. Some of the houses in her neighborhood were just lovely and then right next to them would be one that looked like a shack because of the hurricane’s effects. The homes that had been on each side of Kathleen’s house are now vacant lots. When the volunteers asked, “Who does Beacon of Hope help and how do they determine who to help?” Randy our volunteer supervisor stated that “the organization will help anyone who needs it and because disasters don’t discriminate against race, age, wealth, etc - neither do they on who needs help. Homeowners needing assistance fill out a request, supply materials and Beacon provides the volunteers.” In Kathleen’s case, she supplied the primer, paint and rollers (about $600).
Now Kathleen’s story was sad but I guess it was very typical of many residents. She said she stuck around until the day before Katrina hit. She finally made the decision to leave New Orleans when the hurricane became a category 5. She went to stay with some friends who live only 2 hours or so away on a normal day…but the drive that day lasted 13 hours. She said it was 5 weeks before she got back to her house, which has a flat downstairs and one up. Before the hurricane, she was living downstairs and was remodeling the upstairs which she was planning on moving into….both the downstairs and the upstairs got soaked and mold was everywhere. If you look closely at the house photos you’ll see about 10 feet from the ground a brown water line.
She did receive some disaster/insurance money; however, as was very common during this time of recovery, she gave $40,000 to a contractor and he took off with her money without fixing her home. She used the remainder of her money to repair the inside of the house. She had gotten quotes for painting the outside which came to $12,000 and she could not afford it. She finally moved back into her place about a year and a half after Hurricane Katrina and she just recently rented the bottom flat.
When a neighbor suggested that she contact Beacon of Hope, she became hopeful. She said the brown water line on her house was still a reminder of the devastating hurricane that happened almost 5 years ago.
Now this was not a frilly volunteer effort! We were told we were going to help with starting the painting process – and if any of you know what this is like – it’s really not that fun. It’s priming, scraping and getting things ready. We started with her carport – which from the water levels and moisture - needed to be scraped because its lead based paint was chipping majorly. So our volunteers put on masks and goggles and scraped and scraped and scraped. In addition to this, we had a group of people starting the priming process on the house…some volunteers got a little messy!
Our homeowner, Kathleen, was so appreciative for this effort! She continually thanked us, graciously opened her house up for us and wanted us to know that our time and commitment was invaluable to her. There’s no way she’d have been able to do this on her own.
Photos of our volunteer event may be displayed by clicking here. Select the "Show" button to display the list of photos and click on the various numbers to display individual photos. You may want to use "full screen" mode (F11) to hide your toolbars and display the entire picture.
Thank you to all the volunteers who took time out of their trip – you guys are great! The sweat and muscle you put into this effort was unbelievable! In addition, thanks to all the companies that provided donations to Beacon of Hope Resource Center.
A special thank you to Pat and Charles as PDS graciously sponsored donations to Beacon of Hope for our t-shirts and paid for our transportation and lunch.
I truly feel it is so important to volunteer and give back to communities. Hopefully this will be a tradition that will continue for many conferences to come!
Kathi Preboske
Senior Application Specialist
PDS
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