Friday in Slidell

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27431911.post-2163752032778303272008-04-21T18:40:00.001-04:002008-04-21T18:44:27.487-04:00Friday in Slidell~By Ann Canedy It was our last day on the job and everyone worked double time to finish the roof and clean the work site for the next team. Our Americorps volunteer foremen B-Man and Brandon posed for photos, accepted Cape Cod T-shirts and a good-natured poem written by Linda Gadkowski. They told us that we are the best team they have ever had (and we believed it!). We gathered around in a group huddle with our clasped hands extended to the middle. Ernie Charette gave us instructions for the “desired response”, then asks “Are we the best darn group Habitat has ever sent to Slidell?” OHHHH Yeah! We left the site early so we could drive into New Orleans. We wanted to tour the 9th Ward again and to work with a street preacher named Charlie. We picked up Ryan, a missionary’s son from Las Vegas who is working with the homeless through the Slidell Faith Church before he enlists in the Air Force. We stopped at a place called Carpenter 2, a multi-purpose center in transition. There is already a successful Carpenter 1 functioning in another part of the 9th Ward. The building is stuffed to the rafters with donated clothing, bedding, food and other supplies. The vision is that the center will eventually have a place for overnight stays, a kitchen, meal service, and processing and storage of goods. We stood in an assembly line with some young student volunteers and began packing bags. The bags contain donated bread which the volunteers have to accept as pig feed because it is too old for the grocery stores to give to people for consumption. We checked each loaf for mold. If acceptable, the bread went into the bag with bottled ice tea, pudding, canned meat, peanut butter and bananas. On the way into the center of the city, we stopped at a crumbling old church, its interior still in shambles and covered in mold. We also stopped at a house that stood alone in an area, which used to be a block of closely built bungalows. The door was open and tattered curtains hung in windows without glass. We looked in the windows and saw a crib in pieces and toddler clothes still hanging in the closet. We drove into New Orleans to an area under the I-10. There was a literal “tent city” with rows of pitched tents and old mattresses, shopping carts, dirty clothes and linens. We handed out the bags of groceries we had packed to the people in the tents. Some people expressed appreciation: others demanded their share. There was not enough to give to everyone under the freeway. I had mixed feelings about what I was doing. It was so blatantly wrong that any responsible city official would allow a camp like this to exist. There were people of all races and degrees of sobriety and sanity living in absolute squalor. The stench was overwhelming. It made me angry and it made me sad. Understanding that I was giving these people food they needed to last the weekend, I also felt as if I was being an enabler or putting a band-aid on a problem that the city chose to ignore. Michael Sweeney had a more optimistic view than most of us. He felt it was like one starfish among many on the shore. Throw one back into the sea and although it won’t make much difference to the starfish left behind, it may make a big difference to the starfish which has been given another chance. We are ready to come home. I reflect on how advanced and humane the Cape is in the treatment of its homeless population. New Orleans seems to continue to lag behind neighborhoods like Slidell in rebuild efforts. I feel that our involvement in Slidell with Habitat was a positive experience. We were not offering a band-aid .We were helping people to help themselves and changing an entire neighborhood for the better.Krisnoreply@blogger.com