Katrina10 Day of Service
On the Saturday morning of August 29, 2015 instead of sleeping off the long work week, over ten thousand New Orleans residents and visitors demonstrated the city’s culture of service and volunteerism on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. This citywide Day of Service took place in seven regions of the city and involved over 100 different service projects of various nonprofit, education, neighborhood and faith-based organizations. Green Light New Orleans participated in Central City and Algiers and found both to be a huge success.
Volunteers arrived to the site by 8:00, where they got briefed on Green Light New Orlean’s history, its missions and goals for the day. Then they got straight to work. In Central City, volunteers built and installed six backyard vegetable gardens located in residents’ yards across the neighborhood and painted signs for our garden. In Algiers, volunteers changed 396 old incandescent bulbs to energy efficient CFLs in community homes, provided energy saving information for the residents, and also built two backyard vegetable gardens. The residents and families receiving gardens were a key part of the garden builds on the day of from preparing before hand with a gardening education class to getting down to dog and build the garden with the volunteers.
Our volunteers came in all ages, shapes and sizes, consisting of different community groups, past Green Light volunteers and first time volunteers. We had groups of volunteers from the Rotary Club, Calvary Baptist Church, Sheraton, and RECreate Youth Leadership Council. We had many families volunteer as well, which created a great community vibe. Every volunteer helped us make a difference and we are very grateful.
President Obama helps us remember why so many people volunteered on Saturday…
“Because this is a city that slowly, unmistakably, together, is moving forward. Because the project of rebuilding here wasn’t just to restore the city as it had been. It was to build a city as it should be — a city where everyone, no matter what they look like, how much money they’ve got, where they come from, where they’re born has a chance to make it.” On its anniversary, people all over the world remember the tragedy that was Hurricane Katrina and all of the pain that it caused and the lingering pain. What we can do now is try to look forward towards the future, on how we can work together (all included) to make New Orleans the best it can be.
Green Light New Orleans has a ten-year goal of establishing 20,000 gardens in order to help New Orleans to become a healthier, more sustainable city. We know that with each garden we plant, we are one step closer to this goal. We strive to make healthy eating and organic food more accessible to all people and to bring awareness around the sustainability of our food systems including the reduction of “food miles”. On Saturday alone as a result of our CFL installations we had a huge impact of a reduction of a 177,012 pounds of carbon dioxide reduced over the lifespan of the light bulbs, which adds up to $18,216 saved for the New Orleans homeowners
Green Light New Orleans was only one of over 100 individual projects that took action all over the city. Volunteers across the city sporting a baby blue “Day of Service” shirt rebuilt houses and community centers, painted murals, gardened, and supported one another. Days like these remind us that every small action, when added together, can make a huge difference.
To see more photos, check out our Facebook photo album!