Name of Organization: Hands On New Orleans
Website: www.handsonneworleans.org
Project Duration: Varies
Location: New Orleans, Orleans Parish
Cost: USD 25/day – inlcudes Accommodation, Breakfast and Lunch
Type of volunteer work: Many different non-profit volunteer opportunities are offered on their calendar, easy to use
Necessary Skills: None, just enthusiasm and a desire to help
Country’s safety level at time of travel: Safe
Required vaccinations:
Rate this trip: 5 Stars
Would you recommend to a friend? Yes!

Last year I was in South America teaching, traveling and working on organic farms when friends started emailing me: “Please come and join us for Jazz Fest!”  Although the idea seemed pretty out in left field, something pulled me towards it.   On a whim, I decided to go, but felt that I couldn’t really justify just visiting and then leaving a place that I love, but know needs so much help.  So I found a non-profit organization: Hands On New Orleans.

HONO, as it is called, is a volunteer resource center for New Orleans and Orleans parish.  They offer volunteer opportunities for a wide range of non-profit work: rebuilding, staffing soup kitchens, planting community gardens, working in senior centers, assisting green projects and numerous other non-profit works in New Orleans parish.  They also provide their bunk house for volunteers to stay in for up to one month’s time.  The cost is $25 per night and includes breakfast and lunch.

I reserved my ‘bunk’ and booked a one-way flight to New Orleans, with the intension of staying a few weeks.

I immediately started working as a volunteer on their various rebuilding projects and signing onto their volunteer calendar for other non-profit events. I loved living in the volunteer bunk house; working hard by day and enjoying this rich and delicious culture at night.

In the first few weeks I painted murals and houses, learned how to tile and hang windows and doors. I did roofing. In groups we tore down, put up and did mold abatement in Tyvek suits.  I trimmed and replaced mop molding in a 150 year old house. I helped plant community gardens, built a brick wall and gave cooking classes at farmer’s markets.   I developed skills and a very hearty appetite.

I discovered that every project here has a human face, an incredible story and a sense of urgency. Before I came I knew that N.O. had a great need for volunteers and that the general public and the government had largely grown tired of its post Katrina problems, but I wasn’t prepared for what I found. I was eerily reminded of life back in third world. However, this is our country, how can this be?

If one comes as a tourist and stays mostly in the Quarter, eats in the many fine restaurants and goes to the Jazz Fest, it’s possible to skip around New Orleans’ grittier realities. Truth is that this town and these people are far from being made whole. The locals say that without the volunteers here, this place wouldn’t have a chance.  Just as importantly, you would miss out on the experience of giving back to this place and its wonderful people and of partaking of the much of the deeper cultural experiences that New Orleans has to offer.

One issue at the heart of so many problems for the people is their difficulty in dealing with government agencies, FEMA, insurance companies, banks, contractors etc. Much of the help must be uniquely adapted to this provincial area and its  unique culture to be really effective. As an example, much funding depends on the owner’s proof of ownership. People here live in their houses generationally.  So who owns the house? Well, it’s Aunt Ella’s house. Problem is that Aunt Ella has been dead for 50 years. It’s still Aunt Ella’s house. There has never been a paper transfer. They can’t get monies to repair their damaged homes.

Last year May 1st was one of many FEMA deadlines for the turning in the trailers.  Everyone out.  Regardless.  I worked on four homes that week with a group of frantic volunteers on houses with no water, electricity, walls and with boarded and broken windows. Some of these people ended up getting a reprieve but others didn’t. Many homes are still uninhabitable. The stories of the numerous ways in which these people have been, either failed by the local, state and federal governments, taken by the banks and scammed by nefarious contractors could fill a levee.

The volunteers’ work on the houses is sometimes quite nerve racking and always hot and tiring. Thank god we fortified ourselves with catfish Po’ Boys and Spicy Cajun Crawgator chips for lunch.  No kidding.

Ironically, I had the time of my life; beignets and chicory coffee for breakfast, free live music in the bars in the Quarter and in Lafayette Park and the good company of generous volunteers from all over the country.

We worked on Miss Ann Mae’s house.   Miss Ann is a retired chef from the French Quarter. She let me assist her in making a special meal for us volunteers. We made pork chops in gravy, B-B-Q chicken legs, collard greens and sausage, green beans and ham hocks, potato salad, red beans and rice, jambalaya, corn bread and pineapple upside-down cake. Health food hell for some but, who cares, it was fabulous! Miss Ann didn’t quite trust my skills in the kitchen and would only let me peel potatoes, wash dishes and clean the floors. She didn’t know that I had worked as professional chef for decades, but, I had a feeling that it wouldn’t have changed her doubts about my work in her kitchen. However, I did get to learn her techniques and in the end she decided that I was “a pretty good worker” and that I could come and help her anytime.  Whew!

There are so many incredible stories here, of loss and of persistence, of heroism and of skullduggery.

One amazing experience from the last year: I was at the Jazz Fest and was invited tangentially to a Day After Party. I had painted all day and was bone tired, but as the party was only three blocks away, I went spackled with paint and in my Hands On tee shirt. I was greeted with hugs as I often am when these folks see that you are here to help out.

It turns out that in this little house was full of the musicians from the Jazz tent of the festival.  The person of honor was the Marsalis bros. godmother. She was holding court. This beautiful old house is made as most of old cypress wood, which can take water, but the flooding was fourteen feet high there and all else was destroyed.

The spread of food from gumbo on out, was a food lovers paradise.  But best of all was the music.  I sat knee to knee in a living room the size of a large closet with these amazing singers and musicians and we all sang together!  People went around the room first speaking very eloquently.  I don’t know how they come by all this natural eloquence, but it’s quite common here.  Each person sang a song, my favorite was “I’ll Fly Away.”  A famous horn player was there and his musicians were performing.  I was singing with them and I couldn’t believe my good luck.

This was obviously a unique experience as I’ve made friends with a professional musician who plays sax in the Quarter and when I told him about this party he said, “How long have you lived here??  How did you get to do that?  You must belong here.”  The truth is that it was my volunteering that led me to that house.

Whatever the reason, I’m grateful.

BTW- although not at the bunk house, I ended up staying five months…they say that the mud is thick there and you can get stuck.

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