First day on the job

Today was my first day working at the Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association, or NENA. NENA's homepage (9thwardnena.org) best describes what they do:

"NENA utilizes an innovative resident-based approach to the comprehensive rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward, providing services and implementing sustainable programs in community outreach, case management, design and construction administration, home and school rebuilding, and economic development.

NENA has 17 staff members, in the areas of management and administration, Outreach, Case Management, Economic Development, Volunteer Services and the Design Studio. Its Board of Directors includes seven members, all of whom live, work, or worship in the Lower Ninth Ward.

In addition, NENA has ongoing partnerships the Loyola School of Law, Tulane University, Crescent City Alliance Recovery Effort (CARE), and numerous local and national organizations and supporters. NENA is the lead facilitator of the Lower 9th Ward Stakeholders Coalition, and is a member of the Greater New Orleans Disaster Recovery Partnership."

NENA has ten full-time employees (most of whom are from or live in the Ninth Ward).

I found out today that I'll be working in Volunteer Services, which is great. I've been a volunteer in the New Orleans rebuilding effort several times, so it will be wonderful to see it from the other side. I'll also be surveying houses to see how to best begin each individual building process.

Today was all about the learning curve. I shadowed the other Volunteer Services coordinator as he oriented a volunteer team from UC Berkeley. We took the group to the house where they would be dry-walling and introduced them to the homeowner and their NENA assistant.

I then did an inventory of NENA's extensive supplies for volunteers and Ninth Ward residents. In case anyone was wondering, counting a pile of rakes is very difficult.

I went on to create a backlog of all the volunteer groups we've had in the past few months. Predictably, months like May were very slow, whereas months like March and January have huge peaks in volunteers due to their school vacations. I happened to pick up a waiver filled out with volunteers from my church in my hometown, which was very exciting.

Just before leaving, I created a chart with which to assess the progress of each home in the rebuilding process. I then received my very own NENA t-shirt, which I apparently am supposed to wear every Friday.

NENA headquarters:

To be frank, the Ninth Ward is much as I remember it when I last saw it in 2008. Due to government neglect, few renovated houses stand in the middle of many, many dilapidated ones. Some homes are only half-redone as a result of their owners running out of the money or the energy to fix them. Often, what appear to be large fields of grass have, upon closer inspection, the grooves of lost house foundations. Needless to say, there is much to be done.