New Orleans 2011

Reno Volunteers Back from New Orleans

Channel 2 News - John Potter

10 members of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Church in south Reno just returned from a volunteer trip to New Orleans. It all began with a visit from a Reno tourist. Roger Best said when he took a trip to New Orleans, "I just saw the need when I was down there last spring."

What he saw shocked him. Roger told fellow church members, and got 9 others to go back with him. Folks like Maureen Barnes, who didn't know the first thing about fixing up homes. She learned how to sand wood, only because "there's so much wood that needs to be sanded down, and prepared for paint." Donna Clontz found herself repairing fences, "And we learned that wd-40 is a great sealer for fences...we gotta try it in Reno."

Learning was easy. Seeing what you're up against is hard. Even though it's been almost 6 years, Katrina still casts a giant shadow, a shadow that remains over the neighborhood this Reno rehab crew worked on for a week. What Norm Howard fixed up, was barely a house anymore. "When you walk in the inside of the house, there's no drywall. It's completely gutted out. There's no insulation. Some areas you can actually see down to the ground." Norm learned woodworking. He'll never forget one moment, standing on a 4-foot-high porch. "I realized that the water level was another 5 feet above you looking out across the street...you come to the realization, that's a lot of water."

They learned first hand about painting homes, and poverty. About spackling, and social justice. About carpentry, and caring. They put themselves, in others' shoes. All 4 say the biggest surprise is how much work remains to be done. The images we all saw of boarded up homes remain. Roger says some still have the spray-painted numbers, still bearing the marks of how many dead were found inside.

New Orleans is coming back, but the poor are having a harder time of it. Many of their homes had no insurance. 54% of the city's population relies on public transit. As Donna put it, "Your whole life had been put underwater and molded away and people lost everything. Lost jobs, lost homes, lost everything." And for that reason, their plans to return have already been made. But no longer the Reno 10 ... they say there will be more, next trip.