Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans After the Hurricane.

The crazy thing about this experience is that I didn't build a house. Instead I worked at the Habitat Restore warehouse in downtown New Orleans. Habitat received a lot of donations of surplus housing supplies (lamps, random paint, electrical stuff), a lot of which they couldn't use exactly when they got them so they had to be stored somewhere. They had been receiving so much in so little time they hadn't had a chance to go through them so while I was in New Orleans with my mom we spent the week sorting and cleaning the donations to get it to the point that they knew what was there. The other part of the warehouse is providing lower cost products for people who are rebuilding their own houses. This was the amazing part of the project, by being at the warehouse I had a chance to talk to so many local people who had been directly effected. The feeling that was most overwhelming was the feeling of hope for what the future was to bring. These people had survived and were not going to be overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness, instead they were going to work to bring their community back.

At the end of the week we also took a day and went to visit the Musician's Village that is being built- which is a ray of hope in a sea of destruction. If you get a chance to go- I highly recommend it, it was something that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Links:
Habitat Restore, http://www.habitat-nola.org/restore/index.php
Habitat for Humanity, http://www.habitat-nola.org/
Camp Hope, http://www.camphopeonline.com/campinfo.html

Photos: http://teamsugar.com/group/1530833/albums/1530928

Best service projects were building houses in Mississippi after Katrina, and helping high shool kids repair houses in Michigan.