Louis Armstrong Parks' return

I remember walking on N. Rampart st. one day looking into the great Louis Armstrong park and realizing that no one has been in or has started to even clean up the grounds of this beautiful park that has much history behind it. So I said to myself "Hey maybe one day they'll get around to it and it'll be re-opened sooner than later". Many months had past and then a whole year had gone by after that and still nothing has been done with the park. The steel gates have not even been open yet to this day and rust has set in to these monsterous gates that sit in front of a statue of the great african-american musician himself.
Now two and a half years after the storm I have a vision of unlocking those rusted gates to revive this great and very historical park so that once again the people of New Orleans can march through Louis Armstrong park with family and friends to that good old sound of beautiful jazz here in the big easy. Soon everyone will be able to watch the Soul Rebels,Rebirth Brass band,The Jazz Vipers, and many more perfrom in this great park. This is a work in progress,but will happen and with help of my friends here at Hands-On New Orleans and many other volunteers from either local churches,colleges, the community or from other areas of the U.S. who come and devote their time to rebuild can help make this a reality.
I am very glad to be a part of this project alongside my friends here at Hands-On and just want to hurry and get it re-opened so we can all enjoy it once again.

Working those Biceps

Yesterday Ali and I worked with UNITY, an organization that funds other organizations. Recently they have funded to move 249 homeless people off the streets. Some of these people have been living on the lawn of the City Hall. 160 have been housed. The major task now is furnishing the homes and providing other services to the clients, for instance transportation to and from jobs. Most furniture donations come from hotels going through renovations. A hotel donated about 35 sofa beds so we had to remove them from the hotel rooms and store them in a conference room until we could deliver them to the clients' homes. It only took us a few hours to relocate the sofa beds; it was a great bicep workout! Today some sofa beds were delivered and tomorrow I will be able to once again help UNITY deliver them. This involves moving them up and down stairs...Oh goodness, hopefully my biceps won't fail me tomorrow! I'm excited for tomorrow because along with delivering the sofa beds we are also allowed time to chat with the clients. Hearing a personal story and getting to know the individuals you help is a great feeling. I hope I have the opportunity to work with UNITY on a regular basis. So hopefully you will hear more about them in the near future!

Today Steve, Ali, Andre, & myself and a couple staff members (Dave & Dallas with his bum knee) went to Ms. Evelyn's house to disassemble scaffolding. Then we put some scaffolding back up in different locations around the house. Once again it was a good bicep workout! It was great working with this group because we rarely get to work with each other. Most of the time we are leading volunteers at separate projects. But this week we are not housing volunteers, so we tackled this project together. Slowly we are all starting to get to know one another, which of course is awesome! ...I didn't realize scaffolding could be so fun!

FYI- this whole bicep theme is a little joke between Ali and I...just play along! :)

Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service

This past Monday was the MLK Day of Service. I went to Washington Carver High School where volunteers from Hands On and many others came to help out. Apparently many kids thought their school looked similar to a prison, since it's a modular school. We built and painted garbage can holders, picnic tables, flowerbeds, and also painted murals and brightened up the sidewalk. Here are pictures:

Working for the Betterment of Society

My name is Amy and I was born and raised in Michigan. I first became acquainted with Hands On New Orleans in 2006 when my brother and I, along with friends, drove down to volunteer over Thanksgiving. Since then I thought about returning to New Orleans. This summer I learned of the Volunteer Leadership program with HONO and here I am!

This is my third week in New Orleans as a VL. I am happy to be once again working for the betterment of society. As each week progresses it confirms my belief that I was put on this Earth to do something great. No matter the magnitude, I will change the world and make it a better place. There is nothing more rewarding than making someone's life just a little easier. And Hands On New Orleans is giving me the tools to do so.

Update for this past week - Ms. Evelyn's House and Douglass HS Prep Work

This week, I've definitely learned a ton of things from being on site-- including how to hammer a nail by using the weight of the hammer, and how to lead a group of people. Earlier this week, I shadowed one of our construction supervisors, Dallas, at Ms. Evelyn's house. For most of the day, we patched up the siding on one side of the house. There were a lot of holes and cracks that needed to be patched in order to keep the wood safe from the intrusion of water, which could potentially cause the wood to rot away. Basically, our crew (mostly from Wellesley) had to cut pieces of metal sheets called flashing (which were measured to match the size of the holes and cracks in the siding), climb up the scaffolding, and hammer them on. For smaller holes, we filled them up with caulk.



On Friday, I went to Douglass High School for some prep work for MLK's Day of Service, which was on Saturday, and will also be tomorrow. For most of the morning, I took inventory to make sure all the necessary supplies were on-site. For the latter half of the day, I aided in the creation of a deck. My task was basically to measure the length of the wood that was supposed to be inserted into the deck, and cut it precisely at that length using a chop saw.

Rebuilding education in new orleans

I'm Andre Doyle 28 years old from jefferson city, missouri and grew up in a military family until the age of 14 when my parents both retired out of the air force. Enough about me though. I now reside in the garden district in new orleans and have been volunteering in the area since feb. of 2006 which was six months after hurricane katrina. Katrina displaced many families from their homes and left others homeless. As my time went by though while gutting and rehabing homes I've noticed much improvement here two and half years later and population growing faster every year.
I started with habitat for humanity and now came on board with an amazing organiztion called Hands-On New Orleans(HONO) who is located in the uptown part of new orleans. I'm a volunteer leader for the education project at the John Singleton school library. The library recieves donations from amazon.com and other libraries in the area. The program helps the students expand their vocabulary, reading and writing skills. Volunteers come in to help students read, do school work, or check out library books. Soon there will be an afterschool study program to help with the students' homework so they can catch-up in class that way they don't fall behind and can move on to the next grade. I'll also start this same program at the George Washington Carver high school too located out in gentilly. I would like to set up another program with the high school also to help juniors and seniors with college applications, and help decide what they want in life.
Rebuilding homes and education in New orleans are the most important things we need to focus on now! We are rebuilding the city and surrounding areas better and stronger than before and these students play the most important role, because they are the future of the city and we need to educate them right and be a mentor for them too! They really want to learn and I found this out by sitting down with them and asking just what it is they really want? I hear the same answer from all of them. "I want to learn and need the help".

Introduction and My First Day of Rain

First post here. My name is Emily and I'm from New Jersey, USA. I'm currently one of five Volunteer Leaders here at Hands On New Orleans (HONO). I just arrived in New Orleans, LA on Friday morning, and I'm already loving it here. Being from NJ, Louisiana seems so different, from the general atmosphere, the architecture, the weather, and the people. People seem to be so much nicer down here. Even strangers who are just walking by on the street are greeted by other strangers. Needless to say, everyone I've met here at Hands On New Orleans have been extremely friendly and helpful. The first day I arrived, I was already put to work, and it feels great! We also received Volunteer Leader training, and now we're all waiting for our specific project assignments. My focus area is in Construction, and I can't wait to learn what I can about it!

Anyway, despite the wonderful weather we've had ever since I arrived, today is my first day of rain here in New Orleans. I'll be setting up the rest of this blog and working on the details. Also, we have some big events coming up here at HONO, including:

-Martin Luther King events
-Mardi Gras
-NBA All-Stars are coming to town