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Local Volunteers Return to RT's October Build
Rebuilding Together's October Build returns with local volunteers to repair 17 homes.
During the first two weekends in October you could hear a symphony of hammers pounding and paintbrushes swish-swashing across New Orleans as Rebuilding Together brought local volunteers back to five neighborhoods.
The first movement of the symphony, with its flurry of scrapers screeching off the old peeling paint and debris crashing to the ground, sounded the start of houses becoming homes again. Soothing and flowing, the second movement featured the swish-swash of paintbrushes and rollers applying primer along with shovels digging holes and hammers pounding nails into new siding, all keeping a steady beat. To conclude the piece, the final movement stirred pride with a melody of hope and strength as the last few fenceposts were thumped into the ground and the final coat of paint brushed over the weatherboards. To volunteers, homeowners and nearby residents the sounds that reverberated during Rebuilding Together's October Build created a beautiful refrain.
With 20 local volunteer teams working on 18 houses, the amount of work completed in such a short time impressed both Rebuilding Together staff and the volunteers. More than 490 local and 50 visiting volunteers worked on homes in Rebuilding Together's five target neighborhoods of Broadmoor, Holy Cross, Faubourg St. Roch (New Marigny), Hollygrove and Treme. "Once they met the homeowners, the volunteers gained a personal connection and were motivated to really get things done," said Thomas Smith, an Americorps employee working for Rebuilding Together who led a team that included Capital One and Tulane volunteers. "They were physically and mentally motivated and with the community coming up and thanking them and honking their horns, it showed that these neighborhoods care and are gaining strength."
From 1988 when PRC launched the rebuilding program (then called Christmas in October) to 2005 when Hurricane Katrina changed everything, Rebuilding Together organized an annual October Build Project. In 16 years it had grown to 65 houses and almost 4,000 volunteers. Since the storm RT has relied on thousands of visiting volunteers to complete almost 50 total renovations, but in October local volunteers once again filled the neighborhoods, applying finishing touches on some homes and completing the entire scope of work on others.
"[The past] two years it seemed like the vast majority participating in rebuilding efforts were visitors, welcomed ones at that, but not locals," said Larry Hand, who acted as a house captain for the law firm of Kean Miller Hawthorne D'Armond McCowan & Jarman LLP. "A meaningful and sustainable recovery effort requires, in my opinion, greater involvement by locals in the rebuilding effort. For that reason, I got my company and friends involved in Rebuilding Together New Orleans' October Build."
John Carriere, house captain for the Pepsi team, had the same sentiment: "It takes a village, but if a group of people work together it is amazing how much can be accomplished." With local volunteers instilling a burst of life into their communities over a short period of time, the October Build project left its mark on all involved. The sweet symphony of rebuilding gave residents some hopeful resolution in a city that has heard its share of dissonance.