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The Second Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is tomorrow, August 29. Two years after the storm slamming America's Gulf Coast region and bludgeoning one of its major cities, New Orleans, La., some Americans remain immensely concerned and passionate about rebuilding the region and the city. Many of those concerned are not tied by family to these communities. They simply want to be part of the solution, to help. Katina Parker, resident of California and the founder and director of New Orleans Labor of Love is one of those people, and she believes part of the solution is bringing more volunteers to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
At 32, Parker wants to match college students who want to help disaster-stricken areas with organizations that need more help to serve survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "I have a friend who organized a group of student volunteers (to work on building homes for Katrina survivors in New Orleans)," said Parker in a phone interview last weekend. "I followed them around to document their experiences on film. Over the course of the week observing students, I saw them go from being excited about gutting homes to really forming bonds with the people they helped."
She was drawn also into the people who'd lost everything and still needed safe, adequate housing and stories of families still scattered and shattered because they have no homes or jobs to which they may return. Parker said it's the plight of young children and the elderly that she finds the most compelling and disturbing. In particular she remembers Mr. Dilbert, a senior citizen in her public awareness documentary for New Orleans Labor of Love. Mr. Dilbert lives with his sick wife in a FEMA trailer and receives $590 per month. He's unsure about how to rebuild or how to find the money to rebuild.
"What I saw made me want to do something," said Parker who has a background in film production, photography, and multimedia. She received her undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University and a graduate degree in film from the University of Southern California in film. "I want to go back at some point and find out what happened to Mr. Dilbert," she said.
Envisioning New Orleans Labor of Love as "a clearing house of information" that connects organizations who need volunteers with people who want to volunteer," she said that nonprofit organizations that provide services to communities "are usually too overextended" to match the right volunteers with the right projects. Usually it's volunteers working the volunteer lines, she said, and those people change; therefore, while one volunteer answering your phone call may point those who want to volunteer for projects in the right direction, the next may have recently arrived herself and be unsure.
She plans to inspire and rally volunteers and find funding for the New Orleans Labor of Love project through its website, a full-throttle public awareness campaign, and her documentary about recovery and volunteers, also entitled New Orleans Labor of Love. Starting in November, Parker will book screenings of the documentary with colleges, churches, and social-action groups.
During the intro of the documentary's trailer, Parker says that "2007 is a crucial turning point. If we don't rally to rebuild now, New Orleans may never be rebuilt." I asked her why this moment is so crucial and she explained, "In my assessment, when we look at the news cycle, there are some things that happen every two years to take our minds off the last thing that happened--Tsunami, 9-11--about every two years. God forbid, but chances are within the next two months there will be something else that gets our attention.
"Initially it (Katrina destruction) was day-long coverage, reporters breaking down on how dire the situation (people dying). That coverage has dwindled to FEMA's blunders, corruption, crime: It doesn't move people to act. People think it's too complicated to get involved," she said. It looks complicated and overwhelming, but Parker believes people will help if given options such as ways to volunteer service or donate money.
She hopes New Orleans Labor of Love becomes a program that offers options to those who want to help following disasters, and she also hopes the project will eventually reach beyond the Gulf Coast. Despite her inspiration coming from watching student volunteers build houses for survivors, she
