Memories

The following is a letter to the editor of the Baton Rouge newspaper from 9/15/05 and can be found at http://2theadvocate.com/stories/091505/opi_view001.shtml . As someone who never made it to New Orleans before the storm, I read it sad about what I might have missed out on but hopefull for there are so many people committed to rebuilding the city and restoring it and the landmarks and experiences that make it so great!

New Orleans will recover from storm

I was born and educated in New Orleans.
I remember:
Poboys at Mother's restaurant on Poydras.
Commuting across the Canal Street ferry each morning from Algiers Point in high school.
A streetcar ride down St. Charles Avenue on a cool fall day.
Omelettes at Camelia Grill.
I know what it means to miss New Orleans.
I remember:
Seafood at Fitzgerald's on West End by the lake.
Watching the boats come in at sunset on the point by Southern Yacht Club.
Watching the submarine races on Friday night by the Mardi Gras Fountain.
Hearing Anthony pronounced Antknee.
Making groceries at Schwegmann's.
I know what it means to miss New Orleans.
I remember:
John Gilliam running the franchise-opening kickoff back for a touchdown for the Saints.
Billy Kilmer's passes that looked like wounded ducks.
Buddy D and Hap Glaudi with the Blue Plate special pick of the week.
Tulane beating LSU in 1974 for the first time in 20-something years.
The Bagheads after the Saints lost 13 games.
Tom Dempsey's record 63-yard field goal to win the game.
LSU winning the national championship in the Sugar Bowl.
I know what it means to miss New Orleans.
I remember:
The best hurricanes being at Pat O'Brien's.
Coffee and beignets at the Morning Call after a cold night at a football game.
Two-a-day football practices in August heat on Scout Island in City Park.
Dinner at the Blue Room in the Fairmont Hotel.
The sound of the calliope on the riverboat on a beautiful fall afternoon.
I know what it means to miss New Orleans.
But now Katrina threatens to wash away the future of New Orleans. But it will not happen because many like me also remember what it means to miss New Orleans. It will come back.
First the music will come alive in the Quarter, awakening our ears. Then the aroma of coffee and doughnuts will awaken our sense of smell. And the sight of streetcars running along St. Charles Avenue will delight our eyes.
Small neighborhood stores along Magazine Street will welcome Antknee and Natalie as they make groceries once again. As long as the dream remains, recovery will never be far behind.
May God bless New Orleans; there is no other city like it.

Bruce J. LeBlanc, DDS
Baton Rouge

Telephone lines down

So today I went back down to the River Center hoping to serve dinner as it takes a lot of people to do that and in the past they have been scrounging for volunteers to make meals happen...but Rachel (an LSU student who came with me) and I arrived too late. When I walked upstairs to check in, there was a Red Cross volunteer who needed someone immediately and so I went with him to help. I was walking fast behind him trying to figure out what task would have such an urgency...but my mind could not have predicted what it was I would be doing. He took me down to an area at the end of the lobby where they had installed several phones for the residents of the River Center to use. It was pretty chaotic as there were about 30 people all crammed into a little area aroud nine phones only five of which were working at the time. Behind them were another fifty people who were standing in line, some of whom complained that they had been there all day. These people were trying to register for their Red Cross assistance which can only be done by telephone...(surprise! FEMA assistance can only be registered for on the internet or in person!) Many people had been online for hours waiting for someone to assist them. With the help of a National Guardsman and a Baton Rouge Police Officer, we were able to covince people to move back and create some order. After all that, the phone lines then started dying...and then there were none. Many of the people in line had been there all day, just trying to get to the phone. It was such a tough place to be wanting so much to help but knowing that there was nothing I could do. I spoke with a woman while I was there who had been living in New Orleans and had left before the storm. She had two boys--a one year old and a three year old. I asked her how they were handeling everything and she said they were okay, but things could be better. She also said that she was not sure if she and her family would be returning to New Orleans and that they might stay in Baton Rouge. This has been a common thread that I have heard from many of those that survived Katrina.

Earlier in the day, Whitney (the youth pastor at First Pres in BR) and I had made some contact with other churches in the area. We stopped by University Methodist Church which has a new senior pastor that just arrived this summer. There we found out about storm buckets that are put together by the Methodist conference. Our contacts in Mandeville had been asking for us to aquire buckets, mops, and cleaning supplies and so we inquired more about this. Through this contact we might be able to get 1500 flood buckets that come with a bucket, mop, cleaning solutions, masks, and other nessicities for such cleaning that we can have delivered to the areas that are literally mopping up the mud that has been left behind from the flood waters.

Right next store is the University Presbyterian Church which is quite small in comparison to First Pres but has chosen to help by filling the need for housing mothers and newborns. They are able to house five families at a time in their Sunday school rooms. While we were there, we told them about a shipment that we recieved off an 18 wheeler earlier this moring of a lot of baby stuff including strollers and car seats. They said they could use the strollers and car seats and also needed mattresses to give to these families as they moved out of their facility...and low and behold, we had six matresses sitting in the corner of the church gym. We were able to deliver these items later on today.

Across the street is the Chapel on Campus which has been housing resuce workers from the very begining in thei facility who have been helping out with the different rescue efforts being housed on the campus of LSU. Whitney introduced me to several people including Kevin the senior pastor and Josh who runs the college program. Josh was very busy as the college ministry was hosting their own version of a Wal-Mart in one of the classrooms for students who relocated to LSU after their institutions had been closed by the storm. LSU has enrolled 2500 students and added an additional 500 students in their residence halls since Katrina. Many of these students came with nothing, so this was such a gift to them. While we were there, several international students came and went. They were providing them with goods that had been collected as well as gift certificates to places like the real Wal-Mart and Old Navy so they could purchase things they needed.

Gift certificates like that are such a good idea to send if you are looking to send things to a place that had been affected and you don't want to send money. Part of the reason is that it can be used to purchase what someone needs as needs are changing daily. Make sure to ask whoever or where ever you are sending things what they need/want but that is something we have begun to ask for as a church. Clothes are hit or miss with sizes and some used items are too used to be given on. It's been amazing to watch the giving...don't get me wrong, but I have also seen and heard some things from people about wanting to give on things they no longer want, which is dishartening because the people herevwho need deserve the best!

Well, I am hoping to be better about the blogging...I also have some pictures that I want to get up. It just takes a really good internet connection which I can only get at the local Starbucks. Of course, I love my time at Starbucks...but there is work to be done!

Trip into New Orleans...

more to come...

Press for the Carnival of Hope

Some other took notice of the great things that happened at the Carnival of Hope and it made the Baton Rouge newspaper! Click on the title to see the article!

The Reddick family gets a new home...

I realize that I have not posted in a couple of days. Part of the reason is that I have been doing a lot of administrative tasks that I am not sure are all that exciting to people on the outside. It's been fun for me because it has given me a different perspective on the work of relief. I have been writing thank you notes galore and working on organizing some information for the missions pastor. I also am one of the go to people when folks come in needing some assistance. Today, I got some information on bus schedules to Houston for an evacuee and helped another evacuee get some clothing from the donations that we have received.

I also wanted to share these pictures with you. I think I have told you about Dodi who is a woman who flew down from Washington, North Carolina, who is a youth director at the FPC there. Anyway, she has been down at the River Center shelter everyday and has befriended many evacuees. She has gotten to know one family (the one in the pictures) in particular and to make a long story short (that you can read on her blog at http://dodiinbr.blogspot.com) her church is adopting this family. A church member has a house that they can live in and someone is going to pay their utilities for a while and they are sending down some members of the church in the church van to get them. It's quite an amazing thing! God has been good to provide for this family. Please pray for the Reddick family and their adjustment to North Carolina and for God to open their heart to the people who are wanting to help them.

more...

Getting closer in!

So today started off like any other day...but sitting here at the end of the day it has all changed. Today I got to go into Mandeville, LA, which is in St. Tammany Parish (see link on blurb title to get more info on location) just north of New Orleans. This area took a direct hit from the storm. Words cannot begin to describe the things that we saw...uprooted trees, houses that had huge holes in them, trees that snapped like toothpicks! Amazing to see the power of the storm displayed in these things left behind. I have many pictures and will get them up later tonight. I am still processing through so much of what I saw and what I am feeling. Hopefully, later I can express some of those things here. For now I will let the pictures speak for themselves...and keep in mind that there were more damaged areas of town!

On another note...we were able to take the RV with us, I trailed behind in my car, and empty out all that was brought from Independence, Ohio, at the New Covenant Presbyterian Church in Mandeville. While we were unloading a gentleman came by the church that was going to get some of those supplies out to Slidel later today. Slidel is one of the hardest hit areas in the state. Things there were just leveled.

As you remember, pray for those who are committed to getting these communities back on their feet. Pray for those who have lost so much in the storm and for those who are still in their homes waiting for the power to get back on. Pray for those who have spent the last week clearing debris from their yard and pray for those angels who have showed up to help.

unloading at the church

We took the RV which was already three fourths full and filled it to the top with supplies that we took to the New Covenant Presbyterian Church.

We finally were able to see all the great things that were brought down from the good folks in Independence, Ohio! They used every inch of the RV even putting things in cabinets and closets!

There were people ready and waiting to help us unload including a couple who got married the day before in the worship service. Their wedding was actually scheduled for two weeks later, but there was no way given the current condition of the surrounding area that they could have the wedding they had planned to have.

As you can see, the folks of Independence, Ohio, gave a lot of great stuff that will be given to some areas that need a lot!

And the RV will be used for more trips to bring more supplies to needy areas.

A youthworker's house

Sandwiched between two huge trees fallen from his neighbor's yard, you will find the house of a youth pastor from Mandeville.

You can see the force of the fallen tree in the damage that it did to the car it hit.

This is the tree that fell in the back yard from the neighbor's yard.

It took down the porch and has blocked entry into the yard and the backdoor of the house.

This is now what the backyard looks like.

damage from the storm

Carnival of HOPE!

Yesterday was the Carnival of HOPE that some of the local churches put on for the evacuees living at the River Center Shelter. It was amazing! It was such a joy to be a part of. My responsibility was to be at the volunteer check in desk for most of the day helping to plug volunteers into the various roles they could play in the event. It was an event that could not happen without scores of volunteers and the city of Baton Rouge arose to the challenge. We had over 200 volunteers out on the levee that day helping out with everything from setting up to cooking to just walking around and talking to people. Even the stories of how people came to volunteer wasso touching. God really had his hand on this event and it is evident in these stories.

• One man was at the YMCA where there was a sign about the carnival and he decided to walk down to see if we needed help.
• Another man was at the gas station that morning and began talking to one of the pastors of the church who told him about the event and invited him to join in. He showed up at stayed for several hours.
• A couple of teachers from the Baton Rouge public school system had recieved an email forwarded on by one of the members of First Pres.
• One very special volunteer named Robert was one of the children living in the shelter that we were putting the carnival on for who came to the table to see how he could help. He became the official nametag maker and my new friend.

It was amazing to see the contrast between the before and after pictures of the levee area. The couple of days before it was a barren green park area where kids were using cardboard boxes to slide down the hill, and on Saturday it was a color-filled playland for both children and adults.

As I was walking around I saw a man who was volunteering showing two little boys from the shelter how to throw a glider plane so it would catch the wind and soar down the hill. Over and over, the boys would throw the glider down the hill, run down and get the plane, run back up to the man, get some more instruction, and then begin the process again. They were delighted with their new toy and with their new friend.

We had purchesed 1000 hamburgers, 1000 hotdogs, and 2000 buns for the event. And as you can see from the picture on the left, the food line was always full! No one went hungry as we even had a little bit left over. After talking to some of the kids and serving a meal over at the shelter myself, I know that what they are eating (like food in the dining hall) is good, but gets old after a while. The chance to get something different was welcomed by all.

We had stored all the supplies for the event in the garage where were have been taking donations and sorting them for distribution, so when we left for the Carnival the garage had been pretty much emptied out. We had taken and passed out all of the bottled water that we had collected as well as a lot of books, toys, toilettries and other things that had been donated. By the time that we got back to the church to unload someone had dropped of a carload of clothes and other supplies along with a cart stacked four feet high of bottled water!

One of the church members also brought back to the church a family that has been staying at the River Center shelter for the past 9 days. They lived had been living with family in an area that is now completely underwater and they had lost everything. The family consisted of a mother and three teenage daughters. They were in immediate need of some additional clothing which were were able to provide for them. Longer term, the member of the church that had brought them over, Liz, feels called to adopt them and make sure that their needs are being met and to find some housing for them.

I know that I keep telling these stories about the individual families and people that we have met and interacted with...but that is the story that I see is missing from the news coverage. I really have not had time to watch the news lately, but the little I hear, it's about the death toll and the rebuilding and the mistakes that were made. But each person that has survived this storm has a story...and these stories are filled with hope and provision and survival and life!

See the post below for more pictures from the Carnival!