Sunday was the final day of the CGI U weekend, and all 700 students were in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, the area hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina. What was once a neighborhood is now little more than a barren field littered with cinder blocks and debris.
It was shocking to see firsthand how little had been rebuilt in the past two and a half years. But yesterday two organizations came together to bring the Lower Ninth Ward one step closer to repair.
CGI U partnered with Brad Pitt’s Make It Right organization to aid in post-Katrina reconstruction. The plan was for the students to rake leaves, dirt and debris away from sidewalks and empty lots so rebuilding could begin sometime in the fall.
Saturday was about sharing ideas, brainstorming plans and making commitments. Sunday was about making things happen. Brandon Wolff from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania put it best: “Yesterday, we were learning about what we can do to take action, and today we are actually taking action.”
All work ceased as Pitt and former President Bill Clinton made the rounds, thanking everyone for their efforts.
For the students, the pairing of conversations about commitment with real action was both inspiring and motivational as they headed home, ready to bring about change.
Check out more pics after the jump.
Filed Under: Clinton Global Initiative
Below is a piece written by a friend of mine who was there too.
Thanks again,
Bruce
editor~New Orleans News Ladder
Crucifixion Road
by Karl Demolay
This is for the city that care forgot...
the city that forgot to care. This city, carelessly forgotten,
our party time's behind us now, sensual drums in the dank and virile heat. City of culinary delights, musical giants, simple pleasures, squalid splendors. A city of dust, now shrouded in mold, forever succumbing to entropic bliss on pause. This city of history, a living archive of revelry and regret. The past and the future collide in slow motion. This is the city that must be remembered and rebuilt, this bastion of visceral pleasures and historic decadence. All to our collective delight and nagging melancholia.
This is for the ones that evacuated...
the people who left it all behind. The ones that lost almost everything, or maybe just the one thing they cared about most of all. The ones marooned on highways for far too long, no way home, even as the storm unleashed its initial fury. Those left deserted, no place to rest their heads, thoughts still heavy with guilt or fear or resignation. This is for the people that won't go back, can't go back, afraid of possibility and all of its attendant pitfalls. This is for those that have nothing to return to at all, not one single thing. This is for the ones that relocated, expatriates forced into strange lands with odd customs.
This is for the terminally restless,
the suddenly homeless,
the penniless brave.
This is for the ones that stayed...
the insane, the stranded, the curious tribes, erstwhile survivors and civic warriors alike. Those souls who stayed calm and true despite the chaos, or lost their minds to apocalyptic fancy. Battened down and hunkered low, sipping bottled water with hushed first glances, suspicious demeanors and flashlights at the ready. Proud and defiant holders of the line, sometimes criminal in intent, quick movement on the perimeters, shoot to kill orders...
For all those who were trapped in makeshift shelters, replete with suicides, murders, and rapes: victimization rank and feral. For the bitter end of salvation, acrid tastes on parched tongues dry, even as bids for escape were made.
This is for the politicians...
Federal, State and Local, at once inept and indispensable, some more than others, caught unprepared, unconcerned, unshaven---Playing cat and mouse in a city of smoldering ruins, screams from the darkness of urgent plight, atavism gone awry. Ignorance and obviousness, the slow motion train wreck broadcast for all to see and discuss, obfuscate and ignore. Declarations of me and mine, you and yours, pitted squarely against they and them. This is for too little, too late, the same old song played at precisely the wrong time, over and over. Nagin, Blanco, Brown, Bush, please report center stage to assume the mantle of scorn and blame, everyone gets their turn.
This is for the ones that try to rewrite history or deny it outright, we wish we could deny it all so easily.
This is for the ones that died...
for the loved ones, the foolish ones, the forgotten and cumbersome alike. For the elderly, the infirmed, Vera in her cobblestone grave, the unidentified ones that received no such memorials. And our beloved household pets, loyal until the end. The parks and neighborhood greens, flora and fauna turned to a sepia-tone static gray. The houses, once renowned for their architecture, are reborn as new testaments to the destructive coupling of Mother nature and Human Folly. To the spray-painted X's, harsh and unrelenting, omnipresent in their emergency orange hue: 1 dog dead, 1 person saved. This is for the newest necropolis to rise, our once proud city, our interrupted way of life, breaks in the line of comfortable static. For the evidence of our empire, washed away in the eye of the storm and the turgid, toxic waters that followed.
This is for the ones that rescued...
the Firefighters, EMT's, Police Officers, National Guard. For the people from far and near that just appeared out of nowhere, just wanting to help any way they could, using anything waterborne. And for the locals brave and true, risking life and limb to save just one more person, over and over and over. For all of the endless, tireless, selfless sacrifices and tear jerking humanity. For their shining light of salvation into the boundless dark, onto rooftops, inside of hacked-out attics, out of harms way to higher ground. For beaming from all directions, these beacons of hope, springing eternal and true. This is for all those who lent a hand, however small or large. Our gratitude, more than could ever be conveyed, is all we have to offer in return.
This is for the media...
the good, the bad, the ugly, for the rescuers and the soothsayers, the shelterers and the kind words, for the dispassionate, the doubters, the cynical and the apathetic. The pundits and pontificators, their talking points and bad haircuts, feigning interest at all the scripted moments. For the smiles as the makeup is applied, the vacant suppression of harsh, unforgiving reality in plentiful evidence. The ones that control the present controlling the past controlled the future; as always, blissfully unaware of the consequences...
For the sidebars and scrutiny, the breaking news and tight focus close-ups, hands and mouths reacting in opposite directions, in equal amounts, all from the outside looking in. This is for updates at every quarter of the hour.
This is for the hospitals...
the nursing homes and hospices unprotected and ignored. Piling the dead or leaving them where they lay, morgues and freezers packed tight. This is for the generators that failed too quickly. No sleep or food or water or sanity or safety or hope. For our doctors and nurses, in hellish conditions, against impossible odds, this is for the ultimate and undying respect they deserve. This is for the thugs storming the gates for drugs and evil kicks on top of everything else happening, brash and ignorant of their crime...
For the hotels and hostels, kicking guest out to fend for themselves in our city gone mad. Inundation and tragedy, fragility and breakdown, the worst vacation, convention, honeymoon ever.
This is for the looters...
for the desperate, the prescient, the survivalist hordes. Scavenging and pilfering, salvaging and hoarding anything and everything of use in seemingly useless times. This is for the business owners, opening their doors wide to allow retrieval of water, food, diapers and formula, keeping their cool and doing the right thing. And for the pharmacies, their good intentions torn asunder by destructive addicts and wasteful ignorance like so many store display shelves. This is for the home invasions, the armed intrusions, for making a bad situation worse, for spreading the fear...
This is for the ones that made it easier even while others made it ever harder by the minute.
This is for the children...
the lost or outright abandoned, the marginalized or used, for the separation anxiety, trauma and tears on long hot nights that just got worse and worse. The unfamiliar and the dangerous, the abusive and profane, forsaking even common sense, for the lack of decency, for the bad examples and poor supervision. This is for the countless orphaned souls, forced to bear an adults pain with no advance warning, no preparation or guidance...
This is for the countless smiles, the innocence and playfulness, the ability to make it all disappear, if only for a moment at a time. And for their will, unbreakable and resolute in its purest form and function. This is for what we owe them, first and foremost; their satisfaction will be our compensation over time.
This is for the survivors...
all of us, if any of us, also still, the huge debt owed to those who didn't. This is for all of us in our sad, sad group, no matter where we are at the moment, home or abroad. For the hopes and dreams, reborn from the ashes of the ones previous, for our Phoenix on the bayou. For the nightmares and shock and ennui, the blank stares and paranoia deep into the night. And the helplessness, constricting, paralyzing, numbing...
This is for finding a way to get out of bed in the morning to go to work, gut your houses and reassemble your lives. This is for those that mourn their dead, their missing, their damaged. This is for all of us that are left to find their way back to some semblance of normalcy and well being in these dark times.
This is for the rest of the country...
witnesses to our plight, shelters in the storm, final arbiters of our collective destiny. This is for all of the numerous benefits and donations, the concerns and the heartfelt sorrow. The letters and emails, the long talks on the phone into those September nights and beyond, the shoulders to cry on and beds to sleep in. As well as the showers and food, simple things like ice and clean clothes. For the religious intolerance, the thought that somehow, we deserved this,
that this was God's doing...
This is for the stupidity and hypocrisy, for throwing the first stone when we were down and out. This is for their fatigue, their need to move on, not towards a better understanding, but only to the next sad refrain. For helping us stand, then forcing us to walk away stronger and more assured. This is for those that are rebuilding with us, as well as for the ones that make us want to now more than ever.
This is for the world...
the governments and their citizens, for the superpowers and third-world nations alike. For their offers and advice, their engineers and city planners, the visits of rebuilding and improved protection. This is for the feeling that we weren't alone, that this has happened before elsewhere, only much worse, that it does get better with hard work and cooperation. For the lessons learned and experience shared; the first real promises of something good in uncertain times. This is for the most that we can share, our lessons, our triumphs and defeats, our heartbreaks and celebrations. This is for an open welcome to the grand rebuilding, our glorious comeback and their involvement in all that promises.
This is for the past...
and how not to repeat it. This is for shoddy levees and interrupted communications, driverless buses and improper shelters. For the wild ride to here, the respite in its warming memories, stories and legends yet to be told. The anecdotes and folktales, the ghost stories and the pirates' songs, for history and the curious wisdom it imparts. For the good times, the bad times, the in-between times, we all had them here in this place we called home, no matter if you're local or not. This is for why we still call it home today, even if we won't, or can't be here now. This is for the sacrifices, the sweat and blood, the personal tales of reward and loss. This is for the chance to finally get it right, to learn form our mistakes one more time, to teach others the same as well; it's that precious and rare.
This is for the future...
and the promise that it holds. For the chances in abundance, the endless, limitless boundaries presented. This is for the process of starting over, no matter how long or tough it turns out to be. For the ways to see beauty in the ugliness, to fashion something new and exciting out of something broken and in a state of disrepair. This is for our city, its legacy, our neighborhoods and families, friends and foes alike. For our scenes and cliques, parishes and wards, businesses and hangouts, for the determination to rebuild them all, damn the engines. Our wishes for a better way are here and now, ready and waiting, the concept of building better, stronger, and more secure. All we have to do is make it happen.
This is for the here and the here from now on.
So this is for you, in your own private way. For peace, contentment, steadfast resolve in trying times. For dignity and patience, reassuring calm after the storm. This is for the knowledge that you are not alone, no matter how lonely it may seem right now. For your hopeful return to the place we call home, if not now,
then in due time...
For the knowledge that she will wait for you, she always has, she always will...
This is for our fair lady,
our New Orleans,
Past, Present and Future...
the dump furniture store
the erotic review
the hun yellow pages
...