Archive for August, 2010

Voices of Change: Shareef Cousin

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

I was sentenced to death when I was 16 years old for a murder I didn’t commit.

I was on death row for five years, spending 23 hours a day in my cell.

At 16, you don’t think about fighting for your life, especially for a crime you didn’t commit.

I thought about how I would never get a chance to graduate high school.

I contemplated suicide a few times.

I prayed a lot.

I cried a lot.

And I studied a lot.

I always had a desire for education.

My lawyers sent me English, math and science books.

I received my GED, and then started college correspondence courses, all at my lawyer’s expense.

Once you accept that you are going to die, you learn to find the little things that you can enjoy in each moment.

For me, it was education.

I started helping other inmates with their cases.

I never judged people or their situations.  I just wanted to help people because someone helped me.

Some guys in prison would tell me,

“Man, you’re wasting your time. That dude doesn’t appreciate what you’re doing for him.”

But i was like,

“It’s not whether he appreciates it.  It’s about me.  I feel good helping him.”

People helping me steered my path.

Had people not helped me, I’d probably be executed or still on death row.

After my release, I worked at the Southern Center for Human Rights as a program organizer for the center’s Fairness for Prisoners’ Families program.

I want to be a trial attorney.

I do volunteer service too, at a place that provides food and clothes for homeless people.

I help feed them, and sometimes I go to Sunday night service and experience fellowship with them.

Being on death row makes you face the fact that, when we die, we all want to know that we’ve made some sort of contribution to society, however small it may be.

And your small bit of help may be large to someone else.

What’s small to us might make a world of difference to someone else.

I wouldn’t be here today if people didn’t help me.  I’m in debt not only to those people but to everyone who does that type of work.

In 1995, at the age of 16, Shareef Cousin was sentenced to death in Louisiana for a murder he didn’t commit.  Five years later, the Louisiana Supreme Court overturned his conviction because of improperly withheld evidence. Since his release, Cousin has worked with prisoner’s families at the Southern center for Human Rights in Atlanta.

This piece was originally published in and republished here with the author’s permission.

How to Use Social Media to Remember 9/11

Monday, August 30th, 2010

by ,  HandsOn Network

Are you willing to be an online ambassador for volunteerism?

Will you leverage your social networks to encourage your readers, followers and friends to memorialize the victims, survivors and heroes of the attacks of 9/11 through A National Day of Service and Remembrance?

Here are a few ways we can do it:

Using Facebook:

You can spread the word by asking your Facebook friends to get involved and to add their names to the growing list of individuals and organizations pledging to volunteer in observance of 9/11.  Share the link to the official 9/11 National Day of Service web site (http://911dayofservice.org/).  You can also lead by example.  Invite your Facebook friends to join you at a volunteer project.

Using Twitter

The hashtag for 9/11 as A National Day of Service is #911DAY.   Spread the word about the day of service by tweeting about it and sharing the link to the official 9/11 as A National Day of Service site (http://911dayofservice.org/).  You can ask your followers to volunteer – on their own or with you!  Share the details of your volunteer project with your followers. (If you mention , I’ll see your tweet, and retweet it or )

Using A Blog

If you’re a blogger, consider writing a post about 9/11 as a Day of Service. What you remember most about 9/11/01?  What images stand out for you? Why do you believe in honoring the victims, survivors and heroes through service? How will you take part in the Day of Service and Remembrance? (Here’s a sample 9/11 blog post: https://handsonblog.org/?p=2731)

You might want to include a call to action for your readers, such as:

–> Ask them to pledge to serve via a link to the official 9/11 Day of Service page (http://911dayofservice.org/)

–> Or, if you think folks might want to plan their own project, you can share a link to HandsOn’s guide to organizing a service project.  (http://www.handsonnetwork.org/files/resources/HON_Vol_Leader_Guide_FINAL.pdf)

If you send me a link to your blog post, I’ll link to it from https://HandsOnBlog.org.

Using YouTube:

Consider creating a video about why you think the 9/11 Day of Service is important. You coul answer the blogging questions above on video, upload it to You Tube, and share it with your social networks. If you send me a link to your video and I’ll link to it from https://HandsOnBlog.org

Related Content:

Feel free to use the official 9/11 Day of  Service Image:

You can add it to your blog or website with this HTML code:

http://911dayofservice.org“>

You can also embed or share either of these 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance videos:

Just Another Day

Finally, do something creative – whatever works for you!

For example, you could offer to do something wacky if  X number of your friends, fans or readers pledge to serve.

You could challenge your friends – “If 20 people sign up, I’ll… (insert your wacky thing)!” — Shave your head? –Perform “All the Single Ladies” on You Tube?  Only you can say…

If you’re planning your own project – try using eventbrite, meetup or VolunteerSpot to get the event organized.  If you need to raise money for your project, give Crowdrise a try.

Do you know anyone else who might like to use social media to spread the word and get others involved? Why not share this post with them?

Thanks for your using social media for social good, for helping to promote volunteerism online and for making the September 11th National Day of Service & Remembrance a success!

Want to receive e-mail updates on how to use social media to encourage an online volunteer movement?  Let me know and I’ll add you to my list.  Contact me at .

Related Posts:

Repair The World by Leah Koenig

I’ll Be Back

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

By Bill Goslin, Davis Vision, Ballston Lake, New York

"Volunteer New Orleans"I heard about HandsOn New Orleans from Joan and Harry Thornhill, members of our church, who volunteered in Biloxi in February 2006. Joan and Harry sent daily emails back to us describing their work and experiences. Knowing that I was a “jack of all trades” they thought I should go down and help out.

I took two weeks vacation from my job and found myself in New Orleans at the end of April. The city I found was truly devastated with blue tarps on roofs, abandoned buildings, piles of debris, hundreds of abandoned cars, flooded homes for miles and whole neighborhoods destroyed. There was much work to be done.

Photo by Ethan Bagley

Although I traveled to New Orleans by myself, I quickly made friends with the staff and other volunteers. Meeting so many folks, from all over the world, who were also there to help was very gratifying to me personally. The volunteer headquarters was simple yet functional with an air conditioned bunk room, great dinners from the church kitchen, hot showers and wireless Internet access to communicate with the folks at home.

I went on my first “house gutting” job in a middle class neighborhood of ranch homes. I was given a sledgehammer and crow bar then began to work on pulling moldy sheetrock and insulation down from ceilings. This was hard hot dirty work but when we were done the inside of the house was transformed; it reminded me of a new house under construction – bare studs waiting for new sheetrock.

I have spent many years as a volunteer fireman and asked if anyone had heard of “pike pole” a tool used by the fireman to pull down sheetrock. This tool has a long pole and would make the “gutting” work a lot easier and much quicker. No one had heard of the tool so after leaving New Orleans I found the tools and got them to New Orleans. Akron Brass Company, of Arkron Ohio, donated the first poles with just a phone call.

"Volunteer Disaster Relief New Orleans"I had the opportunity to work on restoring a Jazz Venue in New Orleans called the “mother in law lounge” named after the hit single written by Ernie Ka-Doe in 1961. Ernie past away a few years ago and his wife, Antoinette Ka-Doe, had been running the lounge until Katrina when she was pulled from the roof of the lounge by a helicopter. We arrived one morning with a truck load of building materials and began work.

It was a pleasure to get to know Antoinette and the many members of the “New Orleans Jazz family” who stopped by to thank us for our efforts. I might mention that Miss Antoinette is a great cook and while volunteering we ate authentic new Orleans treats like poboy sandwiches, red beans and rice, jambalaya and crawfish. I look forward to someday visiting the lounge, sipping a beer and listing to some New Orleans Jazz.

I enjoyed the hard work, the fellow volunteers and the HandsOn New Orleans folks who make it all happen. I urge anyone with some spare time to volunteer with HandsOn New Orleans. The experience is life changing; helping others who are in need is very rewarding.

As Arnold would say;

“I’ll be back!”

Bill Goslin lives in Ballston Lake New York, a suburb of Albany, with his wife and two sons; Jacob (9 years old) and Simon (7 years old).  He works for a company called Davis Vision where he manages their telecommunications systems.

Photographic Memories: Katrina Volunteers & Disaster Relief

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

by Chris de Veer, former Volunteer & Director of Hands On Gulf Coast (2006 – 2008)

It’s been five years since Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast inflicting tens of billions of dollars in damages and upending the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

The tragedy that unfolded on national television compelled hundreds of thousands of people across the US to volunteer their time, their money, and their skills to help rebuild the Gulf Coast.

I was one of those who volunteered. Katrina had struck my family. Although my immediately family lived in Virginia, my grandma, who was 83 at the time, as well as aunts, uncles, and cousins lived in and around New Orleans.

No one was injured, but my grandma and an uncle lost their houses to flooding and muck. Going to help with the recovery felt less like volunteering and more like doing what needed to be done.

I landed in Biloxi, Mississippi in mid-January 2006; my initial three-week volunteer trip turned into a two-and-a-half year experience.

The impressions and the scope of my early days volunteering still resonate starkly.

When I first arrived on a plane into Gulfport, I was picked up at the airport and we  headed back to what was affectionately called ‘Base’, or the volunteer warehouse as I also liked to think of it.

I couldn’t help but notice all the blue-tarped roofs.

They were everywhere and the blue stood in stark contrast to the brown-ish drab of winter.

Despite coming in by plane, I had no idea how far the damage stretched or how thorough some neighborhoods had been decimated.

"disaster relief"The first neighborhood I visited was East Biloxi, home to many Vietnamese and African Americans.

The job the volunteer team needed to accomplish was to clean up the site of a former building.

I’m not even sure what was there, but from the debris it appeared to be some sort of a shop and residence.

There was little left, but the toilet had not been damaged. It sat in the open.

As we collected garbage into piles, we found items that someone might want to salvage – nail polish, statues, and a small photo album.

I don’t remember the content of the photo album, but I do remember those photos making the horror of the loss very real and very present.

We have photos to remind us of good times, to remind us of loved ones. And here those special memory triggers were, lying in a pile of garbage that would wind up in a land fill. The photos put faces to the ethereal family that had lived or worked here.

"volunteer"Two years before Katrina, I visited my Grandma, pulled out her photo albums, scanned in every photo, made a database, and asked her to identify everyone in every photo, estimate when the photo was taken, and describe what was going on.

Most photos had a story or triggered a memory that led to a smile.

Who knew that in two years (from August 2003 to August 2005), these scanned photos would be one of the few records of my grandma’s 59 years in her Gulf Coast home?

Who knew that a lifeless husk of a house would greet me the next time I visited.

Who knew I would lose the home where I had lived during first grade, the home where my Dad grew up, the home where my grandmother lived ever since she emigrated from Scotland to marry my granddad after World War II.

Even though my family had cleaned up a bit and tried to salvage some items from the Katrina muck, the house was still a wreck.

My grandma showed me her neighborhood.

Few people were around.

She took me to St Raphael’s, where I went to first grade, and I saw the empty halls that still bore the high-water mark of stagnant Katrina water.

She then took me to Ferrara’s, her grocery store, where I remember having the most delicious French bread.

No one had even cleaned out the meat refrigerators or touched the shelves.

The stench of rot was overpowering.

All across her neighborhood, an eerie quiet had settled.

We didn’t even need to look for traffic when we made our turns. We had the roads to ourselves.

A few weeks later, a group of volunteers went to my grandma’s to gut the place and get it ready for rebuilding.

Although it was gutted in a day, it took another two years to get any money from the Road Home Fund for rebuilding.

The Road Home was Louisiana’s program to disburse federal rebuilding funds to qualified homeowners.

In 2008 when she received her money, my grandma found another house near an uncle in Covington.

The house on Peoples Avenue in Gentilly would sit another two years before my youngest uncle would have the opportunity to begin to rebuild.

I know my grandmother was lucky compared to many other victims of Katrina.

My family was able to provide a safety net for my grandma and helped her into a new house within months of the storm’s passing.

Others on the Gulf Coast were not so lucky.

At Hands On Gulf Coast, we made a point of finding families that other organizations could not help, particularly when it came to rebuilding homes.

We sent volunteers to tutor kids in schools, to clean up parks, to work with the Boys and Girls Club, to even micro-chip pets.

There wasn’t a job our volunteers wouldn’t do.

From January 2006 through May 2008, I saw volunteers and the community slowly and steadily reweave the tapestry of Gulf Coast life.

Schools, parks, homes, businesses, restaurants, and stores all showed signs coming back to life.

I am proud of the thousands who volunteered with us.

I’m proud of the volunteers who joined AmeriCorps or became staff members at Hands On or other community nonprofits.

I hope a disaster like Katrina never happens in the region again, but I know that should it, hundreds of thousands more volunteers will come down to help with the recovery.

What Katrina Relief Gave Back

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

"Volunteer Disaster Relief"by Kellie Bentz, Director of Development, Bayou District Foundation;  Former Executive Director, HandsOn New Orleans

I was having dinner tonight with friends and joking about how I am still here in New Orleans almost five years after my initial visit following the storm.

I originally signed a six week contract to start a “disaster response project” in New Orleans and I find myself still living in New Orleans here.

It is true…this place sticks to you.

I remember the early days of starting this disaster response project, HandsOn New Orleans, in the wake of Katrina with my buddy and colleague, Greg.

"Volunteer Disaster Relief"I don’t think either of us truly knew what we were in for…and I think back and cannot believe that there were people from our national office that believed we had the capacity and ability to accomplish what we accomplished.

After six weeks, Greg had to go back to Atlanta and I looked around and there was no one else to lead the charge…so while I thought at the time my six weeks might turn into three months those six weeks turned in to three and a half years with HandsOn New Orleans.

I look back at that time and could tell you stories that only those that were there can actually believe.

I never would have imagined I would have worked with a team to build 100 bunk beds, and build out a facility that would house thousands of individuals from around the world ready, willing and wanting to “serve.”

I feel truly blessed to have had moments where I would be standing among the hundreds of volunteers and feeling chills, feeling grounded, feeling connected.

What I realized after meeting so many people who came to “Serve” was that most people were looking for a way to “connect” with other human beings in a way that was meaningful.

There are so many stories of individuals that felt their lives had truly changed after spending one week in New Orleans, one week in the bunk house, one week serving with their fellow man/woman.

Some of the most meaningful relationships in my life today came from this experience.

It is true when people say that usually the one serving gets more out of the experience than the one being served.

The entire city of New Orleans is a testament to that.

"Volunteer Disaster Relief"So many people have come from around the world and either come back multiple times or have decided to make New Orleans their home.

So much of my experience in New Orleans has been shaped by the people who have walked into my life or who I have been blessed to have shared moments with…one of those very special people who I will always remember is Ms. Antoinette K-doe. HandsOn volunteers helped rebuild her lounge.

She was a force….she worked alongside the volunteers everyday and at the end held an incredible party.

She was such an inspiration in my life and the lives of so many Handson volunteers.

Her funeral made me finally realize why there is a bumper sticker that says “New Orleans puts the FUN in Funeral.”

Her passing was a celebration of her life not a mourning of her death.

Antoinette is just one of the many characters so many of us have been blessed to share moments of New Orleans with.

Now, five years later, New Orleans has become a laboratory for what is possible…on the education front, on the housing front, in social innovation and on the human connection front.

Heck, I even came to appreciate what football can do to a city’s spirit!

I could not have asked for a more rewarding and formative experience.

Related Content:

An interview with Kertrina Watson Lewis

Waterline

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

by Jessica Kirkwood, VP, Social Media, HandsOn Network

In December of 2007,  my HandsOn Network colleagues and I traveled to Biloxi to volunteer.

While we were there, we painted the exterior of a house built for a woman whose home was flooded during hurricane Katrina. We also painted murals in a daycare center that was finally re-opening and started construction on another new home.

On our first night in town local residents came to our group dinner and told us their stories.

A man named Grady started by telling us was that he usually avoids talking about his experience of the hurricane.

Before Katrina, Grady lived with his wife and three children in a nice house near the beach in coastal, Mississippi.

He was the founder and CEO of a successful company.

He drove a nice car and lived in a comfortable home.

Grady’s elderly father, reliant upon an oxygen tank to breathe, lived in the house next door.

During the summer of 2005, Grady’s family evacuated their home five times for hurricanes.

On one of those occasions… it didn’t even rain.

On the morning of August 29th, 2005,  Grady didn’t think it looked like Katrina would hit the Gulf Coast.

He and his family decided take their chances and stay at home.

At noon that day, the situation looked increasingly dire so they drove two miles inland to Grady’s office.

They brought their boat and left it set so that if the water rose the boat would rise with it.

Well, the water rose.

Grady described the speed at which the water came pouring into his office building and the way it just kept coming and coming.

He only had one life jacket.

His six, eight and ten year old children looked at him with worry in their eyes.

When the water started to become dangerously high, Grady put his six year old in the life jacket and tied a rope around him.

Grady, his wife, his father and the other two children held on to the rope and prayed.

The family decided that if the water rose too high they would break a window up near the ceiling, climb out and swim around the building to the boat.

I’m not sure where Grady’s father’s oxygen tank fit into the plan.  Perhaps it didn’t.

The water kept rising.

The eye of the storm passed over the building.

Grady’s children began to cry

The water kept rising and rising… and then finally…finally…it stopped.

When the water receded Grady’s family had to walk the two miles back to their neighborhood and make their way over six blocks of debris, eight feet high, to find the spot where their house had been.

It took four days for Grady to find what remained of his house four blocks from where it originally stood.

With all communication cut off, Grady’s family had no way to understand the magnitude of the storm’s impact.  In other parts of the country their extended family had no way to know if they were alive.

As Grady talked, I couldn’t help thinking about how frightened he must have been during the storm. I thought about how responsible he must have felt – responsible for protecting his family, for making the choice to stay, for needing to save their lives.

I thought about the nightmares that jerk me awake in a cold sweat – the ones where something terrible has happened to my children. The ones where I can’t save them.

I thought about Grady living through this literal nightmare and it took my breath away.

After his talk, Grady told me that the thing about his experience that hurt him the most was that his children were robbed of the secure knowledge that their father was Superman.

Grady’s kids saw their father’s raw fear and it stripped them of their innocence.

More than anything else, this is what Grady wishes he could erase.

When we were in the Gulf volunteering, the physical destruction caused by the storm was no longer represented by piles of debris or the twisted remains of buildings, but rather by endless stretches of emptiness marked only by driveways and stairs leading to the ghosts of vanished front doors.

I wondered about the destruction that I couldn’t see – to the economy, to public health, to community.

Grady’s family left Biloxi and moved to his wife’s family farm in Georgia where they still live.

Though Grady commutes back and forth between the farm and the gulf coast for work, his family will not return.

They don’t even want to visit.  They will never go back.

We also heard a story about a woman who worked as a nurse in a mental health facility before the storm.

Because the patients couldn’t be evacuated, staff had to stay and work or lose their jobs.

The nurse stayed and, because she stayed, so did her husband and son.

After the storm, when she was able to finally make it back to her house, she found her husband and son drowned in the family living room.

She was found cradling the body of her son on her front porch.

She had been sitting there holding him for days because there was no one to come and collect the dead.

“So is everything rebuilt now? Is everything back to normal?”

We heard how much people in the Gulf region hate this question.

So much of was lost can never be rebuilt.

Grady told us about what he called the second storm surge, the wave of volunteers who came from all over the country and arrived well before the government with water, ice and bread.

The volunteers brought simple things like toothpaste and soap. They brought baby formula and diapers.

“They restored my faith in humanity,” he said.

I wished that I had been one of those volunteers, but on the day of hurricane Katrina I watched CNN and gave birth to my daughter.

This office trip was the first time I was able to leave her at home to come to the Gulf to volunteer.

The house we painted belonged to an elderly woman who had been living in a nursing home for nearly two and a half years after the storm.

Her house, entirely renovated by volunteers, was almost finished and she would finally be able to come home.

Everyone we met in the gulf talked about their faith that the Gulf Coast would be reborn into something greater than it was before.

Despite their experiences, they believed that the utter devastation was, itself, a catalyst for the Gulf Coast’s renewal.

They described people and communities coming together to collaborate in ways that would never have been possible before the storm.

Their enthusiasm and hope were contagious.

I found myself swept up in it, and felt part of something larger than myself.

And in so many ways, I felt so grateful.

Serendipity: The Way Katrina Brought People Together

Friday, August 27th, 2010

by Amanda J. Smith, Rhino Entertainment Company

"Volunteer Disaster Relief"Volunteering with HandsOn New Orleans (HONO) these last few years has been a profound and humbling experience for me.

It has literally changed my view of the world, my place in it and how I relate to others. One might surmise that it’s the simple act of volunteering that did it, or the magnitude of the Katrina tragedy, but it’s more than that.

As much as we all strive to “be the change” we seek in the world, it’s hard for volunteers to put that into practice without some kind of infrastructure or support.

As new volunteers, we need good leaders, otherwise our efforts get squandered, misdirected or wasted in bureaucratic red tape. I’ve had that experience before, of spinning my wheels, and ultimately gave up in frustration.

What a waste!

In my life at least, HONO has become the catalyst that makes my volunteer efforts & energies actually productive and useful to others.

Amazingly, they have found ways to harness a world of diverse volunteers, empower us, and direct our best energies towards  tangible service. That’s one of the many reasons why HONO is so incredibly unique and why I, like so many others, find the experience so rewarding that we keep returning to volunteer with them again and again and again.

"Volunteer Disaster Relief"“Gutting is fun!” Actually, we all know that it is a heartbreaking job, tempered only by the cathartic relief of exhausting physical labor, and the knowledge that we are actually helping someone clear a space for their future, and dreams for a new beginning.

That’s why a big team of LA-based Rhino Records employees signed up for a project called “Miss Patricia’s Gut” on the very first day we arrived to volunteer at HONO in 2006.

None of us knew anything about the project, or Miss Patricia, we just went where HONO directed us.

As we dug into the work, our HONO project leader, shared what he knew about the project, that the house had belonged to the late Professor Longhair, a legendary New Orleans R&B/jazz pianist, and had been passed down to his daughter, Miss Patricia Byrd, who was living there with her son at the time Katrina hit.

"Disaster Relief Volunteer"

Photo by Lindsay Shannon

Being obsessive music geeks, we knew exactly who Professor Longhair was!

Our company had actually released records & CDs by the legendary musician.

His legacy was already intertwined with our own lives through both music and the business of selling music.

Being sent to work on his family home was a random assignment, but we felt an instant personal connection through the shared love of music.

Someone with a BlackBerry sent an email to our co-workers back in LA, and within hours, the whole Rhino company felt connected to the project and Miss Patricia as well.

That afternoon, Miss Patricia & her young son stopped by the house to meet us in person.

Someone had told her we were from Rhino – she had received royalty checks from our company over the years and was touched by the synchronicity of our volunteer involvement.

She told us stories about her father, growing up in this home with him, and that “he could make a piano walk.”

She shared the harrowing stories of her own experiences during the storm and evacuation to the Convention Center.

In the process of gutting her house, we had carefully salvaged several Professor Longhair posters, which Miss Patricia graciously gave to us to keep and display in Rhino’s corporate offices when we left.

It’s hard to explain the richness of these interactions in words, and how bearing witness to someone else’s tragedy can feel like an honor, but it does.

It’s our shared humanity and our connection to each other at this most basic level that allows us to really open up & be there for each other.

It’s why HONO works so well, and why we all keep coming back.

Hurricane Katrina: Volunteer Reflections on Disaster Relief & Heroism

Friday, August 27th, 2010

"Volunteer"by Erika Putinsky

It is difficult to believe we are rapidly approaching the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

As we relive the stories of the hurricane through media retrospectives that are sure to come this week, I am hopeful that we also remember the lessons learned while rebuilding the infrastructure, unmasking issues of disparity that have existed for hundreds of years, and supporting survivors as they create their new normal on the Gulf Coast.

This is our chance to truly, respectfully, and actively remember the loss, triumph, and continued need of the people of the Gulf Coast region.

"volunteer disaster relief katrina"During my efforts with HandsOn Network on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, I had the opportunity to live and work in a place where our nation truly came together as a unified community.

While I was in the disaster zone after Hurricane Katrina I was unsettled and amazed every minute of the day.

At no moment was it possible to escape bizarre sites like a delicate vase balanced atop a house that had been reduced to kindling, juxtaposed against the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen.

These unavoidable ironies hinted that Hurricane Katrina would continue to challenge us with unbelievable sadness and pure beauty for many years to come.

Once the images of the despair and the stories of the survivors reached our world, people began to act.

It seems one of the most profound parts of the recovery was that we all got out from behind our veil of comfort and did what we could to help.

During that time, we were reminded the power of putting thoughts to task.

In Mississippi I met a 90 year old woman that drove 15 hours to volunteer because the hurricane gave her a reason to “still be on earth”.

She said she was a “real good cook” and explained nothing would help the survivors and volunteers feel better than a hot meal.

I saw residents that had lost everything riding dilapidated bicycles through debris filled streets while singing and wearing superhero costumes. They said they just wanted to create some happiness in the midst of the destruction.

"Disaster Relief Volunteer"After the hurricane so many people remembered the power in showing up, being willing to help with a hammer to rebuild a home, or offer a hug to rebuild a life.

We are a world of heroes- we show up in times of great need and have the opportunity to live that heroism through continued action.

Now it is time to dust off our superhero capes, folks.

Let the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina be a catalyst to remind the world to reflect on what can be with their minds, act on what should be with their hands, and continue to craft what will be with their efforts.

There are issues in every nation across the globe that we can solve with our ingenuity.

The Gulf Coast region still needs our help.

Perhaps, keep it local and volunteer at a nonprofit in your city.

You might even walk across the street and introduce yourself to a neighbor.

Show up, put your good thoughts to task and unleash your inner superhero!

Change Notes: Change Notes: Reflections on Hurricane Katrina and Our Continued Commitment to the Gulf

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

"Volunteer"

Friends,

On August 29th, five years will have passed since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf coast. I so clearly remember the early days of September 2005. HandsOn made an immediate and serious commitment to address the devastation and support Gulf relief and recovery efforts through targeted volunteer action. This decision required us to reinvent the unique “HandsOn” volunteer service model in an emergency context on short order.

Immediately following the storm, HandsOn Network mobilized thousands of volunteers to help address the needs of large influxes of displaced Gulf coast residents in cities nationwide. Hands On volunteers assisted evacuees at the Houston Astrodome, as well as facilities in Atlanta, Birmingham and other cities. They helped federal offices and first responders, staffed shelters, developed client services, and repaired homes.

"Volunteer Disaster Relief"In the ensuing months, HandsOn Network also launched HandsOn Gulf Coast and HandsOn New Orleans to serve the growing need created by the crisis. In 2005-2006 alone, our Gulf Coast action centers mobilized 6,100 volunteers, organized more than 76,000 unique volunteer opportunities, and generated over 700,000 hours of volunteer service. These efforts provided an estimated $13 million in economic benefits for Gulf Coast residents whose lives were devastated by the hurricanes.

Over the last five years, HandsOn Network has become deeply connected to the citizens of the Gulf region and to long-term disaster recovery work. Just today, The Huffington Post named HandsOn one of nine organizations that never left New Orleans. Now, once again, the Gulf bears the brunt of one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and I met recently in New York to strategize about ways the power of volunteerism can help the region continue to recover in the wake of the oil spill.

In June 2011, we will hold the National Conference on Volunteering and Service in New Orleans. We selected New Orleans both to assist with the city’s economic recovery and also to create a year-long, focused commitment to meet the ongoing needs of Gulf Coast residents.

"usher volunteer disaster relief"Currently, 13 HandsOn Action Centers serve the oil spill-impacted states of Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana. Looking ahead, HandsOn Network will partner with these local affiliates to recruit and train 10,000 volunteer leaders and mobilize 50,000 volunteers to devote an expected 1 million hours to support the region’s environmental and economic recovery. In addition, HandsOn will conduct a series of on-the-ground and virtual “boot camps” to train volunteer leaders to manage others and develop projects to meet community-specific needs, such as creating job re-training and job search clinics; restoring parks and open spaces; and assisting small businesses in operations, marketing and finance to recoup losses or improve business sustainability. To sign up and Get HandsOn for the boot camps, please visit www.handsonnetwork.org/nola2011.

We believe that engaged citizens are the cornerstone of a vibrant democracy and that effective volunteer action is a path to broader and deeper civic involvement. We believe that citizen action is vital to the ongoing recovery efforts in the Gulf region.

I hope you will join me in rededicating yourselves to supporting Gulf Coast residents and families in the coming year.

In Service,

Michelle Nunn
CEO, Points of Light Institute and Co-Founder, HandsOn Network

Hurricane Katrina: Then and Now

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

"Volunteeer"by Greg Heinrich, Mobilization Manager, AmeriCorps Alums

It’s been five years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, and as a person who was born and raised in the region, it has been five years of ups and downs.

As a native of the New Orleans metro area, my youth was filled with memories of the unique New Orleans culture, one that is a true asset to our country.

The food, the music, the fun, the history, the New Orleans accent and the sense of community are all traits that combine to make one of this country’s most appealing and interesting cities.

After Katrina, many of the people who make-up of that culture were displaced, some temporarily and some permanently.

Even though I was not a resident of the area during the storm, I vividly remember the images being broadcast across the networks: bodies floating in the water, residents pleading for help from the rooftops, armed troops patrolling the streets- U.S. streets- as though they were preparing to subdue an enemy that could erupt violently at any moment, and the hungry, huddled masses gathered at the Morial Convention Center.

These are all terrifying and saddening images that will always be with me to serve as a reminder that even the abilities of one of the most advanced nations that civilization has ever seen can be crippled in the face of nature’s fury and a disconnected government response.

And there is also the more personal, anxiety-filled memory of the inability to communicate with family because nearly most of the communications infrastructure was non-operational. Are they all right? Is our home flooded or completely washed away? How long until power is restored?

These and myriad other questions were flowing through my mind, and even now I return to that state anxiousness just by thinking about it.

I remember badly wanting to offer assistance to the evacuees headed to Atlanta where I now live.

I volunteered at local resource distribution centers to organize products being donated to those affected by Hurricane Katrina.

It didn’t seem like that was enough though, so I worked with a friend and colleague to identify relocated families who needed financial assistance in the aftermath of Katrina.

Still, I had yet to see first-hand the new reality of my hometown.

In December, 2005 I was finally able to make my way down to the New Orleans metro area, and what I witnessed was a region that was literally ripped to shreds.

Homes uprooted from their foundations and littered on the sides of roads as if they were rag dolls, entire neighborhoods like ghost towns because either the residents decided to permanently relocate or had no resources to get down to the work of rebuilding, the camps- where I spent weekends as a youth- on Lake Pontchartain completely wiped out, and at night there were spots of complete darkness because street lights were not working and several neighborhoods had a large percentage of residents who had not returned to their homes.

The devastation was the most incredible example of nature’s power I had ever seen in such an up close and personal way.

But one thing was clear, the spirit and perseverance of the people of New Orleans would play a key role in helping to rebuild New Orleans.

Certainly, the business of rebuilding a stronger, better New Orleans would be a tough order. But perhaps a Home Depot billboard I saw summed it up best.

It said:

“Rebuilding New Orleans: You can do it. We can help.”

That was then.

Now, five years later, New Orleans has faced its share of challenges during the recovery, but it has also made significant strides.

Based on mail delivery statistics, the population is only around 80% of the pre-Katrina population, and it is hard to gauge much of that 80% consists of transplants who relocated to New Orleans because of the storm (i.e. volunteers).

The Road Home program is viewed by many to have been an inefficient boondoggle that has served to frustrate more citizens than it has helped.

The murder rate is the highest, per-capita, in the nation, not a good statistic to have if you are looking to attract new and returning citizens to your city.

All of these are significant challenges facing the city of New Orleans.

But then, there are other areas that have seen astonishing improvement, so much so that they are being looked at as models for other parts of the country.

Right now, over 70% of the students in New Orleans are attending charter schools, and a voucher program has been implemented to allow children in failing public schools to attend private schools.

The education revolution has led to more competition among schools and more education options for the children of New Orleans.

Currently, New Orleans is the most market-based school district in the nation.

The results point to increased student performance and rising test scores.

As an AmeriCorps alum, I would also be derelict in my duties if I did not mention the role that AmeriCorps members, AmeriCorps alumni, and other volunteers have played in the recovery effort.

The city has experienced a volunteer boom over the past five years, and through it has effectively tapped into the collective knowledge and passion of volunteers to help rebuild and restore the New Orleans metro area.

Because of its effective utilization of volunteers over the past five years, New Orleans has attracted the world’s largest conference on volunteering and service. (The 2011 National Conference on Volunteering and Service will be held in New Orleans in June, 2011.)

Then, there has been the opportunity to thoughtfully plan how to rebuild.

The silver lining in the destruction of the city was that New Orleans could look to rebuild in a way that took into account energy efficiency and environmental responsibility, an opportunity New Orleans has seized upon to become a frontier for a city-wide green revolution.

One organization, Global Green, is embarking on a lofty plan to rebuild 10,000 green homes.

Strides like these help point to the viability and resurgence of the city.

Then, there are those things that are much the same.

Although it may have lost some of its people, the essence of the city remains intact, and this is what makes New Orleans one of the most unique cities in the world.

The food is still deliciously mouth watering.

The bustling, busy streets of the French Quarter are still filled with vendors and street performers.

The oak trees that line St. Charles Avenue in such a welcoming manner still remain.

The genial residents of the city have maintained their friendly hospitality.

The soulful bar music spilling into passerby’s ears and onto the brick-covered streets remains a unique, New Orleans characteristic.

The pride, unification and utter joy that a city can experience all because of its football team are still part of the fabric of New Orleans.

While Hurricane Katrina may have altered New Orleans in some ways, now as then, it has not changed its heart, it has not changed its soul, and it has not changed its spirit.