New Orleans 2009

We are a team of 6 people from the Vancouver area in Canada and we are headed down to New Orleans from June 27-July 5th to spend a week helping with the Recovery Efforts from Hurrican Katrina. While our primary focus is rebuilding, we will be serving in various soup kitchens around the City of New Orleans.

As most of our team members have never been to New Orleans before, we will be balancing all of our hard work with some sight-seeing opportunities, experiencing the sights and sounds of this fabulous city. We look forward to the people we are going to meet, the stories we will hear along the way and the memories we will create. We are currently finishing up the last of our fundraising and making the final preparations for our 8 nights in NOLA.

This is the Third Trip to New Orleans by the same coordinator. The first trip was New Orleans 2007, originally set up for 8 Youth and 4 Leaders, we added an opportunity for adults to join in on the trip and ended up with a team of 21 people. The adults worked with Habitat for Humanity and the youth and leaders spent the week at Youthworks working on a number of different projects. What an amazing and life changing experience it was for all involved. Trip #2 was NOLA 08 and consisted of 19 adults, most of whom didn't even know each other. But we found each other at the airport as we were easily spotted with our bright blue team t-shirts. This time we spent a week volunteering with the Saint Bernard Project and we stayed at Camp Hope. Our week started with church at Noah's Ark down in the 9th Ward, followed by lunch at Sonic, an Airboat Tour (Jean Lafitte Tours) and then dinner at Deanie's with Pastor Willie Walker.

As I write this, we are 20 sleeps away from leaving for New Orleans. I can't believe it has been almost a year since I was in New Orleans, but more so that this is the 3rd trip that I have had the priviledge of coordinating. I love helping this city and sharing the incredibly rich culture with the Team. As I look back over the previous years, I can't help but smile. Besides all of the families we have been able to assist and all of the incredible stories we have heard, some pretty fantastic things have happened. Noah's Ark Missionary Baptist Church was rebuilt for an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and we were so happy for Pastor Walker and his congregation. Then last year the co-founder of the St. Bernard Project, Liz McCarthy was nominated and then chosen as CNN's Hero of the Year. And that is just the beginning in so many ways...

And now that you have a little history on the trips from Vancouver, Canada to New Orleans-let this year's journey begin to unfold as we complete our fundraising and pack our suitcases for this years trip...

thank-you for stopping by, we will begin updating on a daily basis on June 26, 2009.