The Second Line - New Orleans
	Story and Photographs by Brian Gnatt Desire is returning in New Orleans. With some love, a lot of sweat, and help from more than 45 volunteers from Georgetown Prep this summer, Desire Street, Piety Street and other streets in the Upper Ninth Ward showed signs of life as residents continued to renovate their homes and new pink, purple and blue houses sprouted up as part of a massive volunteer rebuilding project. This was the third year since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Crescent City in 2005 that Prep students, staff, parents and alumni traveled to New Orleans to help with the rebuilding effort. Led by English teachers Ben Williams, ’80, and Don Cheeseman, the annual service trip offered the group an opportunity not only to help with the rebuilding effort, but to see first-hand the determination of residents to restore both the city and its spirit. “We’re starting to tap into the need in New Orleans,” Williams said. “There was a need before Katrina, but Katrina took away everything they had, which was the community. Initially we were building houses so people could return home, but now we need to build communities.” The Second Line, the name given to Prep’s New Orleans service trip, has made a five-year commitment to participate in Habitat for Humanity’s rebuilding effort through 2010, but the trips will likely continue for longer, Williams said. The name — the Second Line — refers to the second wave of people at a traditional New Orleans parade or funeral who follow after the musicians and family. Williams and Cheeseman led three groups of rising seniors that each worked for one week in June — not typically the most pleasant time to work outside in hot and humid New Orleans. Making sure to stay hydrated as they worked four to five days a week constructing various new homes, the volunteers framed windows, wrapped houses, framed interior spaces, carried lumber, nailed 2x4s and installed siding. The adults did mostly roofing work, so a number of them spent their time laying decking and shingling the single-story shotgun-style houses. “I enjoyed spending time with my classmates and having the opportunity to see what they could contribute outside of school,” said Nick Wilson, ’09. “I gained a lot of respect from them while working among them on the different homes. The best part was working with them while joking around.” The construction work was organized by Habitat and the First Baptist Church of New Orleans, which have pledged to build 300 homes in New Orleans over a five-year period. According to Williams, “Building houses is a hands-on way to confront injustice and effect social change. It provides us with a physical activity which helps us process what we experience. Our students do not simply learn about the social conditions of the poor; they see their faces, go into their houses, hear their stories. This is not an academic exercise but one of the heart.” Prep requires students to fulfill a substantial service commitment, which helps to further the school’s mission of creating “Men for Others” beyond the classroom and playing fields. Students are required to perform community service throughout all four years at Prep, however, between junior and senior years, students must complete a 50-hour project that includes direct, interpersonal service with those experiencing economic poverty or another disadvantage. “The immersion part of the trip gives Ben (Williams), the guys and I a chance to experience life a little closer to the lowest margin of our society,” Cheeseman said. “As you know, in imitating and exploring life that has limits, we begin to understand what living without the extras means. Living without the extras also puts into sharp relief how our lives are shaped, almost unconsciously, by what we have. One of the experiences our guys struggle with most is not being able to satisfy their every whim.” Being able to see a different side of life in New Orleans helps students to comprehend how fortunate they are. “I think it will affect kids’ conversations about welfare,” said chemistry teacher Kate Walsh, who joined the trip for a second year in 2008. “I think they’ll approach those issues differently.” Working on the various houses just outside of Musician’s Village, a new neighborhood of 80 Habitat homes conceived by Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis, was most students’ first experience with construction. The work was exhausting, the weather was hot and humid, and parts of the week took them outside their comfort zone. Prep volunteers worked alongside other church groups and organizations, including a number of Americorps members who helped to supervise the construction. The homes being built in the Upper Ninth were replacing homes that were flooded by more than 10 feet of water when levees and flood walls failed during Katrina. New homes are being built on pilings to minimize damage if the area were to flood again. “Working in the Upper Ninth gave me contrast — it showed me how lucky I am to live and sleep in a clean, safe place with water and electricity,” said Joe Kenny, ’09. “I realized again how lucky I am to be at Prep, and how generous my classmates are. It gave me an opportunity to get to know some of my classmates I didn’t know that well. I liked getting to know the adults on the trip too.”

	Students’ experiences went far beyond construction. Before beginning work, each group toured some of the parts of the city that were hardest hit by Katrina: the Lower Ninth Ward, the Upper Ninth Ward and Lakeview. The devastation that students saw in these areas varied tremendously. In Lakeview, the wealthiest of these areas, many of the homes had been restored. In the Upper Ninth, a few houses on each street might be occupied, but signs of rebirth were obvious. In the Lower Ninth, where the rebuilt flood wall of the Industrial Canal loomed only a stone’s throw away, nearly all of the homes had been razed. Cement foundations and driveways were surrounded by weeds; fences encircled empty lots; and a dead silence without even the chirp of birds enveloped much of the area. “The best thing about it is what the kids get to see,” Walsh said. “The average Georgetown Prep student doesn’t get to see what we saw in the Lower Ninth. It’s totally silent, you could hear a pin drop.” Doug Badini, ’09, said his exposure to situations outside of his daily life — from long days on a construction site to the poverty and violence in the streets of New Orleans where he saw a dog that had been shot — made him realize his life has been somewhat sheltered. “It gave me a whole different perspective because we saw the poverty and we saw the violence,” Badini said. “I thought it was a good learning experience — a good challenge and good to get out of what you’re used to.” Each work day, students awoke before dawn to get dressed and nourished before leaving for the job site. The first group stayed uptown in dorms owned by Loyola University. For the second and third weeks, the groups lived in Metairie in the gym of the First Christian Church of Greater New Orleans, near Louis Armstrong International Airport. The gym offered plenty of space; the group slept on air mattresses in side rooms and a large commercial kitchen was ideal for meal preparations. Everyone was responsible for making their own breakfast, but each student and chaperone was assigned a different duty — some people were responsible for making peanut butter and jelly or turkey sandwiches each day for lunch; other groups had to prepare the water and Gatorade drums for the job site; others had to help cook dinner or clean up afterwards. The day didn’t end after everyone boarded the Prep bus following seven hours of work each day. On Wednesday nights, the groups attended St. Anna’s Episcopal Church for their Healing Mass and Community Supper and Jazz Concert, an intimate dinner experience with traditional New Orleans cooking and conversation with locals. The group also visited the Harry Thompson Center, a beautifully designed sanctuary for the homeless that offers people a place to eat lunch, wash their clothes, address health care needs, pick up mail or receive help from social services. Next year, Williams said the groups will spend a day volunteering at the center. Each week, students also had the opportunity to tour both Loyola and Tulane universities. At night, each group discussed its experiences that day through a group reflection before bed. “What our students saw and experienced stunned them into action,” Williams said. “The fact that the level of destruction and poverty we witnessed is in our own country shocked all of us. We were also in awe of the goodness of the people, the fact that everyone — everyone — said ‘thanks for coming down here to help us.’” Cheeseman said he is hopeful that students’ desire to help others will continue past graduation. “I hope and believe that our guys begin to discover the most important element of their Jesuit education through the service program — becoming a person committed to using their gifts, their power, for justice, life, opportunity for others.” For Wilson, the trip had just that effect. “I truly believe this project is worthwhile because we are helping out our brothers and sisters,” he said. “If I was in the same situation I would greatly appreciate another’s hand to rebuild my house. The city already has hope for the future and we are helping maintain that hope. The smiles from the residents’ faces are enough to make you want to come back. I plan on returning next summer.” Meeting residents of New Orleans and listening to their stories about life before, during and after Katrina left an impression on the volunteers. “There was a lady who lived across from our work site named Miss Margaret,” recalled Kenny. “She was around all day at her house when we were working. She was kind to us because she let us use her temporary house, a FEMA trailer during the day. She lost her house in Hurricane Katrina. It is being re-built. … Life for Miss Margaret must be very different. I think she was brave to come back and try to regain her old life. I am not sure she will.” Walking the streets of the Upper Ninth during lunch, students heard from residents who had been stranded on bridges during Katrina, only to return home weeks later to find their homes were destroyed by the flooding. Students heard from residents whose loved ones died in the storm. But they also heard from residents about their determination to rebuild New Orleans, a city some said their families had lived in and loved for more than five generations. “People of all walks of life have been so honest and appreciative and willing to reveal who they are,” Williams said. “They’re so strikingly honest that it’s deeply honoring and rewarding.” The Second Line will return to New Orleans again for three weeks in June 2009. The group plans to split its time working with Habitat for Humanity and the St. Bernard Project, a nonprofit rebuilding organization founded by Georgetown Visitation alumna Liz McCartney and Zack Rosenburg. Instead of building new homes like Habitat, the St. Bernard Project renovates existing homes in St. Bernard Parish, where all 27,000 homes were destroyed and the middle-class families who lived there were displaced. “We are going to do in a week what it would have taken months on weekends for a homeowner to do,” Williams said. “It’s important for our kids to see that what they’re doing is a big deal. I want them to say, ‘I can make an impact.’” For more information about The Second Line, please contact Ben Williams or Don Cheeseman. This story originally appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Alumnews.