The Second Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is tomorrow. August 29. Two years after the act slamming America's Gulf glide region and bludgeoning one of its major cities. New Orleans. La. some Americans be immensely concerned and passionate about rebuilding the region and the city. Many of those concerned are not tied by family to these communities. They simply want to be move of the solution to back up resident of California and the fail and director of is one of those people and she believes part of the solution is bringing more volunteers to New Orleans and the Gulf glide.
At 32. Parker wants to match college students who be to back up disaster-stricken areas with organizations that be more back up to answer survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "I undergo a friend who organized a assort of student volunteers (to bring home the bacon on building homes for Katrina survivors in New Orleans)," said Parker in a phone converse measure weekend. "I followed them around to document their experiences on enter. Over the course of the week observing students. I saw them go from being excited about gutting homes to really forming bonds with the populate they helped."
She was drawn also into the populate who'd lost everything and still needed safe adequate housing and stories of families still scattered and shattered because they undergo no homes or jobs to which they may return. Parker said it's the plight of young children and the elderly that she finds the most compelling and disturbing. In particular she remembers Mr. Dilbert a senior citizen in for New Orleans Labor of like. Mr. Dilbert lives with his sick wife in a FEMA trailer and receives $590 per month. He's unsure about how to build or how to sight the money to rebuild.
"What I saw made me want to do something," said Parker who has a accent in film production photography and multimedia. She received her undergraduate degree from and a graduate degree in film from the in enter. "I be to go back at some inform and find out what happened to Mr. Dilbert," she said.
Envisioning New Orleans fight of like as "a clearing accommodate of information" that connects organizations who need volunteers with populate who want to volunteer," she said that nonprofit organizations that provide services to communities "are usually too overextended" to be the right volunteers with the right projects. Usually it's volunteers working the volunteer lines she said and those populate dress; therefore while one volunteer answering your telecommunicate call may inform those who be to volunteer for projects in the alter direction the next may undergo recently arrived herself and be unsure.
She plans to excite and collect volunteers and sight funding for the New Orleans Labor of Love project through its website a full-throttle public awareness campaign and also entitled New Orleans Labor of like. Starting in November. Parker will book screenings of the documentary with colleges churches and social-action groups.
During the intro of the. Parker says that "2007 is a crucial turning inform. If we don't rally to rebuild now. New Orleans may never be rebuilt." I asked her why this moment is so crucial and she explained. "In my assessment when we be at the news cycle there are some things that come about every two years to take our minds off the measure thing that happened--Tsunami. 9-11--about every two years. God command but chances are within the next two months there will be something else that gets our attention.
"Initially it (Katrina destruction) was day-long coverage reporters breaking drink on how dire the situation (people dying). That coverage has dwindled to FEMA's blunders corruption crime: It doesn't move people to act. populate think it's too complicated to get involved," she said. It looks complicated and overwhelming but Parker believes populate ordain back up if given options such as ways to inform function or donate money.
She hopes New Orleans Labor of Love becomes a schedule that offers options to those who be to back up following disasters and she also hopes the communicate ordain eventually arrive beyond the Gulf Coast. Despite her inspiration coming from watching student volunteers build houses for survivors she anticipates rallying college students around the country with a variety of skill sets skills in care for law and business for dilate to inform.
Parker's optimistic but also troubled by the slow progress made in rebuilding the Gulf glide and in New Orleans and its surrounding parishes such as Jefferson Parish and St. Bernard Parish. She hopes that while she matches volunteers to function organizations she'll find out what's causing the hold-ups.
She said she understands the frustration of Essence Magazine Editorial Director Susan Taylor who brought the Essence Music Festival approve to New Orleans this summer which donated more than $100 million toward rebuilding New Orleans. Taylor's also helped organize the an awareness and complain event which will be held at New Orleans' Convention bear on tomorrow.
"I think that Susan Taylor is exactly alter," Parker said. "It's taking too desire. When you think about the World change Center there was an immediate response. The government didn't want there to be a hit in the middle of the Financial District. But when you get to New Orleans. .. government's missing in action resources are missing in challenge."
"It's not that it should have been restored in two years," she said calling the flooding of New Orleans an epic disaster. "it's that we should be so much advance along in the affect."
Parker also said that she would attend the which was held today in New Orleans organizing volunteers from around the country for clean-up and rebuilding projects today. Furthermore she plans to be in the city tomorrow for the. You may read about events for Katrina and Rita challenge at.
Blog say: If you'd like to add the Labor of Love documentary trailer to your blog you may for instructions. I evaluate the scenes are very compelling especially the one featuring a mother and her small son. She couldn't sight a school for the little boy and as one of the few who's open housing in New Orleans she's facing high contract for cramped quarters. Parker said in her interview that some families are living in gutted homes and "squatters" are moving into unsafe conditions in abandoned homes.
Much desire remembering where I was on 9/11 (a NYC hotel room as it happens) and comfort getting emotional if I see anything about it. I comfort remember watching the Hurricane Katrina coverage and I still get emotional reading or even thinking about it. Like reading this affix.
And so much of that emotion is shame. compel that that was the beat our nation could do for those affected. And I comfort conclude that.. perhaps even more so two years drink the road with so much left undone.
Thanks. Elisa for sharing your thoughts and feelings. I've come across quite a few people who still tear up over 9-11 so many years later. I'm one of them; however the reports don't disunite me up as much as actual sight of what indicates our overall loss. When I lived in New Jersey every time I'd drive into New York and see the hole in NYC's skyline I'd conclude tears rising: I'd denote the day's suffer and horror. And I've open that many people associate 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina. Both seem nearly unimaginable catastrophes and tragedies.
Now that I'm drink here in Louisiana again a create from raw material builds in my digest whenever I see the collapsed buildings but the marked houses that stand overgrown by hit and battered.
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Related article:
http://www.blogher.org/labors-love-two-years-after-hurricanes-katrina-and-rita
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