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Blog Entry 3 of 5 A CU Student's Perspective
I'm Lisa Doan, a student at the University of Colorado - Boulder. For spring break, I traveled to New Orleans with the Alternative Breaks volunteer group, and I'll initially be blogging about the experiences I had down there.

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~LDoan

Days that change your life
Contributed by: Lisa Doan   on 7/12/2006

Recently, I've been planning a second volunteer trip down to New Orleans for this August. When I've told people that I'm going back, there have been two reactions: Some have criticized and asked, "Why?" Others have volunteered without hesitation.

Several people have asked me, "Why would you go back? It's almost been a year. Isn't everything back to normal now?"

Not even close. We will be going to St Bernard Parish, one of the most devastated neighborhoods in the gulf. Located just southeast of New Orleans, 100 percentof the buildings in the parish (county) were structurally damaged from Hurricane Katrina and ensuing storm surge. The St Bernard Recovery Project is hoping to gut 7,000 homes by August 29. As of June 10, only 1,430 of those homes have been completed. If the houses are not cleared out by August 29, the city will begin bulldozing the homes.

New Orleans has been out of the news for well over six months. And it's understandable -- it would be very redundant to see the same images and be reminded of the situation on a daily basis. In our on-the-go culture, we are constantly bombarded with causes that we are told we ought to be concerned with. If we're not worried about the war in Iraq, we are shown images of Darfur or the AIDs epidemic. How do we choose which cause deserves our attention more? It becomes very easy to ignore all of them.

When I began to put this trip together, I called my friends from the spring break trip to gauge interest. Each and every single one of them wanted to go back. Several jumped on the trip without hesitation.

The difference is very apparent. Those who have not seen the devastation in person do not understand how much work is left to do and feel no responsibility towards the citizens of New Orleans. Those who have seen the damage in person have been deeply affected by the tragedy and developed a connection to the Crescent City.

The first trip to New Orleans had a very profound impact on myself and my volunteer group. Through our work, we each bonded with the city and resolved to do what we could to bring it back to life.

I will admit that, before I went to New Orleans, I asked the question, "Why would anyone live below sea level? That's foolish." Being 1,500 miles away made it very easy for me to criticize and dismiss the images I saw on the newscasts.

But there's something about being there in person, seeing the devastation with my own eyes, and actually making a difference with my bare hands that made me realize the situation isn't so clear-cut. Meeting the people who had lost everything and seeing how far-ranging the tragedy was, the question became, "Why aren't more people coming here to help?"

Though I have only been in New Orleans for a grand total ofsix days, I feel duty-bound to return until I am no longer needed. Using estimates for reconstruction time, that means volunteering in New Orleans for the next decade.

I have no qualms about that. If I have the funds and time, I hope to continue to go back to New Orleans until the work is done. Some will say that's a waste of my time and money, but there are people in New Orleans that disagree.

I encourage anyone and everyone to spend some time volunteering. Maybe not in New Orleans, but the homeless shelter in the city could always use a helping hand. Just one day, and your outlook on life may change forever.



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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Lisa Doan

Longmont , CO

Lisa Doan has posted 5 blog entries and 0 comments since joining on 4/5/2006. Lisa Doan 's average blog rating is 5.
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