January 23 2008, found a team of twenty-two Global Hope volunteers leaving Chicago heading down to New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward. Funded by the proceeds raised at the “Roadhouse Jam” Benefit Concert in September, 2007 (see “fundraisers” for more details) and several generous individual donations, the mission was to attend to some serious and long overdue home rehab due to Hurricane Katrina. With the help of Common Ground Relief, a New Orleans volunteer organization focusing on Katrina relief, the plan was to focus our efforts on five specific homes.
Thanks to Roy Spencer, owner of Downers Grove-based Perma-Seal Basement Systems, two box trucks, manned with eight of his own employees, filled to the brim with donations of clothing, appliances, gift cards, construction materials and tools, set out for the 19 hour drive, heading south. Other local businesses, Wisbrock Roofing of Westmont, Fortress Stabilization Systems, and Downers Grove based BrickCraft, followed suit by donating not only labor and services, but products as well.
After five full days of non-stop labor, from foundation to roof, put into motion by all the planning, organizing, emailing, phone-calling, transporting – five homes in the Lower Ninth Ward were refurbished, restored and even beautified. There was plenty more to do, but until our return – Mission accomplished!
Read the blog below to get a first-hand sense of the volunteer experience.
