I can’t wait to head down to New Orleans. Yesterday we watched an emotional film depicting the government neglect towards Lousianna residents. The documentary vividly illustrated the poor planning and execution used for evacuating residents during hurricane Katrina. It was even more horrific to watch the failed relief effort, which reaffirmed everything we have learned from our class readings and discussions. On a lighter note, today we learned how to properly use a variety of tools we will be using in our efforts to help rebuild homes in New Orleans. I’m expecting big things from our group and as long as we keep an open mind, listen, and be respectful towards those we are helping, I think this will be a very successful trip. Additionally, I know our work will continue on beyond our stay when we return home and educate others about the injustices and proper steps that should be taken to better help New Orleans.  

Today the class spent 2 hours getting trained in the use of power tools at Community Land Trust of Schenectady.  CLTS is an affordable housing agency in our city that helps low to moderate income families become homeowners, using the landtrust model.  I’ve been on their board of directors for a number of years and have great admiration for Bev Burnett, the executive director.  The land trust model has the benefit of keeping housing affordable for the long term in changing markets. It also provides support for new home owners who often struggle to cope with the demands of home ownership.

For the past 2 years, Bev has done a workshop for the service miniterm class in which the students get to practice using the types of tools they’ll use in Louisiana.  Many of them have never used these before.  It was great to see their confidence and skill grow over the short 2-hour workshop.

I’ve posted photos of them at work in the link to my Picasa site at the right. You will see focussed hard work they do.  No captions yet, but I may have time for that while we are on the road. 

This week, in addition to celebrating Thanksgiving, we are getting ready to head south on December 3rd.  Excitement!  Filling out those notarized forms, deciding what kind of boots to pack, getting our tetanus shots updated, reading those books about New Orleans and the wetlands…lots to do!  I’m pretty excited about this, the 3rd group of students I’ve accompanied to Louisiana.  

It will be great to have Molly MacElroy with me again — we’re a great team.  This year Paul Matarazzo is also coming with us — Paul is in charge of capital projects for Union and is an expert on all things construction.  And, he is a great cook, we hear. 

What am I thinking about? Mostly wondering what it will be like back in Dulac and Houma.  Darryl Guy at the Dulac site tells me that the flooding from Ike was worse than from Rita, and Rita was terrible.  The pictures I’ve found on the web are dramatic. It will be hard emotionally to see so much once again ‘washed away.’

I’m excited that this year we’ll be actually doing a project to help repair the wetlands.  Mel Landry at BTNEP has arranged for us to do clearing of invasive species down at Grand Isle with the Nature Conservancy.  We’ll be down there on Sunday, Dec 14th.  The drive down will take us by many of the sites described in Mike Tidwell’s Bayou Farewell, and we’ll be right there on the Gulf to see the oil rigs dotting the horizon like ants.  We’ll learn so much!

Got to go…I’m still grading papers from last term and need to make some last minute calls to LA.  I’ll be assigning everyone in the class to post here at least once before we head south.  Watch for their posts, coming soon.