Description of POC Week
Description of POC Week
Note: Many high school students have come to New Orleans to volunteer with the People’s Organizing Committee this summer. This is a letter to parents explaining the experience. We thought readers would be interested.
We are writing to you because your child either has attended the People’s Organizing Committee (POC) summer project in New Orleans or is interested in attending. We want to make it clear to you just what is entailed in the summer project experience, which is often an emotional one. We hope the letter helps you better understand how this week may impact your child and become an unforgettable and potentially life-changing event in his or her growth.
POC is an organizing project that is dedicated to helping those most impacted by Hurricane Katrina – poor black people -- come together to find their own ways to deal with the problems with which the hurricane confronted them. We are doing this through the New Orleans Survivors’ Council. Our summer project activities are dictated by the needs and desires expressed by the Survivors’ Council, and we follow the strategy of uniting volunteers of all backgrounds behind black leadership.
The main focus of the Council at this point is to gut and reconstruct the homes of residents who would like to return home and rebuild their lives. Consequently, the week a volunteer spends down here is divided between gutting houses and going door to door to inform residents of the events and meetings of the New Orleans Survivors’ Council. If a volunteer is here on a Saturday on which the Council meets, he or she will also have the opportunity to attend the meeting and see the Council in action.
The first thing that happens when a new group of volunteers arrives is Orientation. This consists of POC staff explaining the work of the organization, a Hurricane Katrina timeline, and emergency evacuation procedures in case another hurricane threatens during the volunteers’ stay in the city. This is followed by a Levee Tour, during which volunteers see the difference between the structure of the levees in the business districts and wealthy neighborhoods and those in the poor, black neighborhoods where the levees failed. Volunteers see first hand the destruction caused by the levee failures and the continued neglect of the impacted communities. This tour never fails to be a somber and somewhat shocking experience for new volunteers, who are sometimes moved to the point of tears by what they see. The Tour is followed by a workshop on how to go door-to-door and speak with New Orleans residents. Orientation takes up the first day of the volunteer week.
Once the “work week” starts, each day begins with a drive to the Emergency Community free food distribution center for breakfast and to pack a lunch to carry along on the day’s activities. Work begins for the gutting teams at 8:00 A.M. POC team leaders drive their teams to the homes currently designated for work, where everyone suits up in Tyvek suits and dons face masks and goggles. Several hours of hard work knocking out sheet rock, carrying out debris and removing nails begin. Breaks are frequent and water bottles plentiful – as is the camaraderie that comes from working together to help our fellow people who have suffered such great loss. After a lunch break, work resumes, and by 2 or 3 o’clock it’s time to knock off and clean up. The teams then drive to a local university which has generously allowed us to use its showers and athletic facilities, and with which we have an arrangement for dinner for some of our volunteers (others go back to the free kitchen, or, on occasion, to local restaurants with their chaperones).
Meanwhile, the Organizing teams have been going door-to-door in various New Orleans communities. They are in pairs or threesomes, and their goal is to listen to the stories of residents and invite them to Survivor Council activities. Many students find these conversations deeply moving, as New Orleans residents share the tremendous trauma and loss they suffered during the flood that followed the hurricane. Activities such as the upcoming “Gutting Block Party” are shared, and residents are welcomed to attend meetings and activities. (The “Block Party” is a gutting event on a block-long scale combined with barbeque, live music, dancing and fun. Residents and volunteers take part in the work and the festivities.) After a day of visiting, the organizing teams meet up with the gutting teams for dinner, sports and socializing. After two days on one team, the volunteers switch and do the other type of work.
The day’s events end with a “debrief” meeting each evening at 7:00. Volunteers and staff sit in a circle on the lawn beside the POC office and share experiences and ideas. Tears sometimes flow in this setting as well, as volunteers describe their emotions at finding a single baby shoe, a teddy bear or a video game in a house they gutted that day, or others share the tragic stories of loss of loved ones they have heard talking to residents. Strong feelings are exchanged, and many and varied ideas about how and why such things have happened to New Orleans residents. Sometimes there are disagreements, but the dedicated POC staff helps volunteers to understand how important their efforts are and how much they are appreciated. Sadness and pain turn into uplift and determination as the group rises, joins hands and sings to end the evening.
Now it is home to hang out with fellow volunteers, play cards, talk and talk and talk. Eventually, chaperones are able to convince the tired students to get in bed and get some rest so they will be ready to start the routine again the next day.
By the end of the week, fast friendships have been made. Hugs are exchanged all around as groups prepare to leave and make way for the next contingent. Students exchange e-mail addresses and phone numbers with new friends from other cities, and express their regret at having to leave and the hopes they have of someday returning with yet more volunteers to help in the effort. It has been an unforgettable week, and parents are in for a lot of listening time when their children arrive back home.