Habitat for Humanity (www.habitat-nola.org) is well known for its building and construction service projects. Volunteers for this project worked at the Musicians' Village in the Upper Ninth Ward.

Coordinated by Ron Wheeler, participants painted, hammered, carried, and hauled materials to help build a house. All this in the summer heat! Whew!

Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana (http://www.no-hunger.org/) is a non-profit organization with the mission of acquiring and distributing food in partnership with social service agencies in southern Louisiana (e.g., senior care centers, day care centers, homeless shelters). When the organization began in 1982, they distributed approximately 50,000 pounds of food each month. Since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Second Harvest's food distribution rate is at an unprecedented 52 million plus pounds per year!

Coordinated by Ann Hemmens, this group of volunteers sorted canned goods and other items into categories by type and then packed the food into boxes.

Morning shift (9am-12pm):
22 people; filled 325 boxes with food = 5504 meals

Afternoon shift (1-4pm):
21 people; filled 429 boxes with food = 8580 meals

The two shifts combined emptied a tractor-trailer of donated food!

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Hurricane Katrina did double damage to the Louisiana State Museum facility in New Orleans. First, it damaged several of their buildings and some artifacts. Then, after Katrina had passed, only 40% of the Museum staff returned to New Orleans.

While the Museum continues to try and fill the staff positions, a large backlog of cataloging and inventory has built up. Coordinated by Amy Hale-Janeke, it was librarians to the rescue!!

Volunteers were divided up into three teams: Inventory, indexing, and cataloging. Inventory volunteers helped sort and preserve a watercolor collection that will be featured in a book sometime in the future according to the Director of Collections. indexing volunteers spent the day with record books, some of which dated back to the early 1900s. These books were searched for lost items and cross checked with current lists. Finally, the cataloging team tackled the unique challenge of cataloging items other than books. An upright bass played by a famous jazz artist, a trumpet, and New Orleans elections ephemera were just some of the fascinating items cataloged.

Highlights of the visit included a behind-the-scenes tour of the facility, which boasts a working wax cylinder gramaphone, Mardi Gras costumes, original James Audobon watercolors, and other unique items.

Participants (in alphabetical order): Filippa Anzalone, Karen Brunner, Emily Evans, Amy Hale-Janeke, Ann Puckett, Esti Shay, Barbara Traub, Hugh Treacy, and Lyn Warmath.

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