Last night, our professor revealed to us a plan that's in development. Common Ground intends to set up a distribution center in the 7th Ward, and to counteract some planned higher income housing in the same district. The first step to doing this is removing all the trash that the flood left behind and spreading the word about CG's presence. The local government has neglected to remove any of the debris from the flood, so they have been sitting there for sixteen months, untouched. Our class decided to take it upon ourselves to kick start the project. We would make maps of the district, pass out flyers, and pick up trash. We planned on filling up bag after bag and then presenting it to the city, shoving the government's inaction in their face.
Things weren't quite that dramatic, at least not today. It turns out the 7th Ward wasn't as garbage-filled as we were expecting. I, along with others, envisioned a neighborhood with streets ankle-deep in rotting appliances and mud, but in reality, the streets we cleaned weren't that much dirtier than your average city block. Which is not to say that it wasn't trashed; it was. We filled about seven bags worth of stuff per street. However, by the end of the day, we were all a little bored with the job; it just doesn't quite give the same feeling as gutting does. You'd think that removing out tons of moldy, decomposed household items from a damaged home would be a hard thing to miss, but I certainly missed gutting today.
But hey, things are only getting started. Once we get the ball rolling, we might start to see some change.
More to come.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Richie, I think its a really neat thing you guys are doing. It might not be as dramatic as you had envisioned but it is still meaningful.
you are changing something. whatever that means :)
and my dad said he's proud of you. and so am i. this is how you change the world.
Post a Comment