A Trip to New Orleans

Monument at the Hurricane Katrina Memorial

   Ok, this isn’t tennis related, but I really wanted to talk about it! Last week we had fall breakand two of my teammates and I headed down to New Orleans with Habitat for Humanity to help build a house! That’s right, Caitlyn Lawrence helped build a house (you’re thinking you wouldn’t want to live in that house, but really, we did a good job).

After the ten hour bus ride we arrived in Ward 9 of New Orleans. We first visited a memorial site for Hurricane Katrina. It was unbelievable to see it, the date especially: August 29, 2005. That was six years ago, yet they are still rebuilding the area. In the neighbourhood we were in many of the houses were still destroyed from the hurricane. 

One of the houses destroyed by the hurricane

 We spent two days on a worksite in Ward 9 and we had the lucky job of laying out the foundation for a house. We arrived on the site at 7:45 a.m. and after a quick introduction we got right into building. It was crazy since most of us had no experience with building a house before. I thought we would just be assisting other workers, but no we were doing the majority of the work. They gave us a quick demonstration of what needed to be done and then we were getting down and dirty trying to accomplish the task. 

What the site looked like on the first day

     The work was slow at first while we were trying to figure out what exactly we were doing, but we started to pick up the pace with some practice. A couple of hammers to the hand, scratches, cuts, and sunburns later we had finished all the work that needed to be done so that the concrete could be poured in for the foundation. It took a group of 25 people two days to do it, but by the end we were all really proud of what we accomplished.

It was really a great experience and a very rewarding way to spend my fall break. What was really awesome is that we got to meet the lady who was going to be living in the house once it is finished! I was really sad to leave the site and would have loved to stay to see the entire house be built. I recommend to anyone who ever has the opportunity to take part in an activity such as this to try it. You will be so happy you did. 

The Lady Pacers hard at work! Me, Gina, and Margot!