Monday, September 20, 2010

Beginning

I have been down in New Orleans almost a month now, and have been getting my feet wet (literally) in what I'm going to be doing. Here is a brief update about what I have been doing so far:

    I Got to New Orleans on Tuesday August 17th, and moved in to the lovable, "Blue House" (below) with my five housemates and fellow Young Adult Volunteers. We spent the first week getting oriented in the city and visiting everyone's job placements. My housemates are: Tasha Nickler, Lauren Rampy, Maegen Norman, Emma Wood and Katie Turpen.

Tasha and Lauren will be working at Project Homecoming (http://projecthomecoming.net). From their website: "Project Homecoming is a rebuilding effort of The Presbytery of South Louisiana in partnership with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. We are committed to rebuilding homes devastated by Hurricane Katrina that belong to families who are low-income, uninsured, underinsured, disabled, and elderly. With the help of volunteer labor, we make rebuilding affordable for those who would not otherwise be able to return home."

Maegen is a chaplain's assistant at Oeschner Hospital, Emma is working at Chinese Presbyterian Church in Kenner, LA and Katie is splitting her time between Faith Presbyterian Church and First Presbyterian Church in New Orleans.


 


 



 


    After almost a week of getting situated, we all travelled to Stony Point, New York for an orientation retreat with the Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs) who will be serving in a variety of locations both in the United States and across the world. It was a time for spiritual reflection and discussion of serious issues related to both service and mission. I left with ideas and tools to help me consider what it means to act and live in service to others, and to continually strive to learn, understand, and find and test ways to improve social issues that I myself may play a part in. A lot to reflect on. We returned to New Orleans, and the extreme humidity, on August 27th and prepared to start working.


 

I also haven't explained really what I'm going to be doing, so I will try my best to do that here. My job is a "work in progress". In some ways I will really get to make this job my own throughout the course of the year, but there are some general aspects that will remain consistent. I am working with Bayou Blue Presbyterian Church in Gray, LA and the Center for Hazards Assessment, Response, and Technology (CHART) at the University of New Orleans, and am working mainly on educational outreach about the importance of wetlands and other environmental concerns in Louisiana. Basically, a large part of my job will be talking with volunteer groups that come to New Orleans about what wetlands do, why they are important, why they are disappearing, and what we can do about it. I will follow up by sending newsletters monthly to these and former volunteers with updates about current news and issues in Louisiana. Bayou Blue Presbyterian Church is about an hour and a half drive from New Orleans, and I'll make that drive pretty regularly.


 

<iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;msa=0&amp;ll=29.697597,-90.785522&amp;spn=0.310157,0.575409&amp;msid=107882439436740036505.000490b25d7c7da5a0cf9&amp;output=embed"></iframe><br /><small>View <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;msa=0&amp;ll=29.697597,-90.785522&amp;spn=0.310157,0.575409&amp;msid=107882439436740036505.000490b25d7c7da5a0cf9&amp;source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">Where I am</a> in a larger map</small>


 

I have been discovering that Louisiana's coast is disappearing very fast (about a football field sized piece of land is lost every 45 minutes), and communities that are on what has become the frontier between land and water are at great risk of being lost. The other thing that I've discovered is that the speed and degree at which land is being lost is due to human intervention in the ecosystem, mainly caused by the building of levees on the Mississippi following the 1927 flood which diverted sediment into the gulf of Mexico and away from wetlands that needed the soil and nutrients, and the creation of canals for gas and oil that dissected wetland areas, allowing salt water to enter farther up into formerly freshwater areas, killing plants and beginning a cycle of erosion as root systems no longer hold together land at the edges of these canals. So with no new sediment providing nutrients, and areas being eroded land is going fast. I am just beginning to see the connections.

Another aspect of my job will be working in some capacity to get a new project started that involves using raised bed gardens. The basic idea is this: communities along the South Louisiana coast have suffered the loss of a huge amount of land that was previously used for a variety of purposes (hunting, agriculture, etc.) and can no longer can be used for these purposes, because it is either water, or too water-logged. Raised bed gardens would provide a place to grow food, raise chickens, and plant native trees that would provide communities with more of an ability to provide a portion of their food for themselves, promote education in communities about wetlands issues and local ecology, and would begin to restore some of the natural habitat in the region. I will need to become better informed about this, but I know that there is some funding that has already been raised to start working on this, and I am excited to be a part of it. It will also help me to better understand how wetland loss affects people and communities.

I spent Sept. 11-13 visiting Bayou Blue and some surrounding communities with my supervisor Kris Peterson, and her husband Dick Peterson. We drove "down the bayou" to visit a few communities that are now, due to land loss, are literally at the end of the road, before you get to mainly open water. I attended the worship service at Bayou Blue on that Sunday and was greeted with great hospitality, kindness and food by the congregation. I am looking forward to working and worshiping there this year.

And then there's the oil spill. On Sept. 13th, I sat in on a town hall meeting with Kenneth Feinberg, who is now managing the gulf spill damage claims, in Houma, LA. Many, many people whose livelihood has been fishing, shrimping and crabbing have been suffering these past few months from not being able to work, and are concerned about their future options for work. The oil has not disappeared and is still washing up onshore, according to reports in the Times-Picayune and local monitoring organizations. I pray that people will be treated fairly and justly in this process.

Everything still fells like it is just beginning, and I look forward to digging into my work more, and begin able to take time to reflect.

Monday, September 6, 2010

    This is a blog of my thoughts and reflections during a year in New Orleans as a Young Adult Volunteer with the Presbyterian Church.

INTRO

        I am spending this year as a volunteer in New Orleans through the Presbyterian Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) program. The YAV program supports young adults in spiritual formation, vocational discernment, practicing simple living while reflecting on and working in service in communities of need. I am living with six other volunteers in a house in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans. We all have different volunteer "placements" which means that we will all be doing different jobs this year. Here is a brief breakdown of what everyone is doing

Lauren Rampy, from Dallas, Tx will be working as a Village manager at Project Homecoming, a volunteer housing organization

Tasha Nickler from Bucyrus, OH will be a part time village manager/community liaison at project homecoming www.projecthomecoming.org

Meagen Norman from Tx will be a Chaplain's assistant with Oschner health system

Emma Wood from Greensboro, NC will be working at Chinese Presbyterian Church in Kenner, LA

Katie Turpin from Birmingham, AL will be working at First Presbyterian and Faith Presbyterian church with a number of outreach programs

    I am going to working at The Center for Hazards Assessment and Response Technology (CHART) at the University of New Orleans www.chart.uno.edu and with Bayou Blue Presbyterian Church in Gray, Louisiana (near Houma). I will be giving presentations about environmental issues to volunteers and other groups, as well as helping with a number of different related projects.    

CONTACT INFO

To get ahold of me:

e-mai: lponderev@gmail.com

phone: 503-998-9233, or if you want to send a letter my address is:

4223 Franklin Ave

New Orleans, LA 70122


 

FUNDRAISING

    As part of the program, I am supposed to raise funds to pay for half of my expenses while I'm down here. That comes about to be about $6,500. If you are interested in making a tax-deductible donation, you can either write a check to:

Kathy Lee
Presbytery of South Louisiana
3700 Gentilly Blvd.
New Orleans, LA 70122


 

Please include my name (Evan Ponder) in the memo line)


 

Or you can donate online through the presbytery website:

Go to http://gamc.pcusa.org/donate/E051474/

Click on "Make a Donation"

Put my name (Evan Ponder) in the "comments/instructions" section.

You have the option of making a recurring donation if you choose to donate this way. All donations are tax deductible and you will receive a receipt for your donation.


 


 

"Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony" (Colossians 3:12-14)