NY2NO

New York 2 New Orleans Coalition

Philadelphia

Philadelphia Trips to New Orleans

2010 Temple University New Orleans Brigade Update

This January, a group of 27 students from Temple University ventured down to New Orleans for a week long service-learning experience. Throughout the week, the group worked with Our School At Blair Grocery, the only school serving high school aged students in the Lower 9th ward which is also the cite of the cities largest community garden/urban farm, and is quickly becoming an organizational hub of the community.  While working along side local residents, this group helped to build the school its self, worked on the schools existing farm while also laying the ground work for their new extension of the farm/garden, helped clear abandoned lots that have run rampant with over grown grass, and most of all....learned a lot.  

The next step for us now is to bring down a group of 30 high school students from North Philadelphia so that they can have a similar experience, and ultimately so that these two groups can begin working together to tackle a number of similar problems that exist here in our own city and in our own communities. 

History of New York 2 New Orleans Coalition

        Three  and a half years  ago, in April of  2006, a group of  49 students from the  Beacon High School in  New York City went  down to New Orleans  on a student-organized  service-oriented trip to  help with the re-building  process of the city  that had been devastated  by Hurricane Katrina  only 9 months before.  These students expected  to go down to New  Orleans to simply volunteer  for 9 days, help  re-build a few homes,  and return to New  York City and resume  their ‘every day’  lives. None of them  returned from the Crescent  City the same person  that they were when  they signed up. 

         The  group did help gut and re-build a number of homes that week, but what they did not realize upon arriving in New Orleans was that they were walking directly into the heart of a brewing movement to combat racism, classism, and all kinds of systematic discrimination and oppression (not only in New Orleans but throughout the nation). The facilitators of this trip included a number of community-led grassroots organizations. The students worked alongside residents and longtime civil rights activists to not only re-build homes, but to canvass and organize survivors into powerful councils so that they could begin to lead their own movement for change.  

           Over  the next year, the  Beacon School ran two  more trips to New  Orleans, and during  the summer of 2007,  a number of the  students who had gone  down came together to  create what is now  a fully functioning  non-profit organization called  the New York 2 New Orleans Coalition (NY2NO). The mission of NY2NO was to; 1) organize as many students from across NYC to go down to New Orleans, and 2) get those same students to become active in combating racism, classism, and inequality in their own communities in NYC.  

         Over  the past 2 years,  NY2NO has organized  22 trips, for over  500 students, coming  from more than 35  schools throughout NYC.  In New Orleans, NY2NO  has assisted in the  rebuilding of dozens  of homes, has helped  establish what is now  the largest community  garden in the 9th Ward, and has helped build what is now the only high school in the area, Our School At Blair Grocery. In New York, NY2NO has created strong partnerships with a variety of community gardens and community organizations throughout the city, and has established a fully functioning community action/internship program. Most of all, NY2NO is working to create a strong alliance with students in New Orleans so they can all continue to work together towards creating true social change in both of their respective cities.  

             

GROUP 1 and GROUP 2
The Application for the Temple University group is now closed.

We will be bringing TWO separate groups down to New Orleans this Winter. One group will consist of high school students throughout Philadelphia, and the second group will consist of students at Temple University.

CLICK HERE TO APPLY FOR GROUP 1: High School Group. This group will be going down to New Orleans on December 26th, and returning on January 3rd.

What will we be doing?

Here is the typical format of each trip (schedules may vary somewhat from trip to trip):

Day 1 – Traveling. Everyone arrives and is transferred by bus to our sleeping site, where they unpack, settle in, and eat. This day serves as a day to hang out and meet the rest of the group, including the first debreif, during which everyone can get to know each other a little and discuss expectations for the trip.

 

Day 2 – Orientation. The second day serves as orientation, and preparation for the week. The group will go on a tour of the city's levee system in various neighborhoods, go through a canvassing workshop, and learn about how NY2NO and the organizations we work with are run.

 

Days 3-8 – WORK

Morning: Manual Labor. Students various different types of work in solidarity with Lower Ninth Ward residents as they work to rebuild and revive their community. This is with multiple organizations, including The Lower Ninth Ward Urban Farming Coalition, The School at Blair Grocery, Lowernine.org, and The Lower Ninth Ward Village. Students do multiple tasks, including rebuilding work such as house gutting, painting, nailing, or drywalling, and yard and garden work as lots are cleared and prepped for urban farm plots. Students are split up into groups of 5-15 each morning and work at various sites, switching each day as different tasks are needed to be completed.

 

 Afternoon: Canvassing. During canvassing, students go door to door speaking to residents. Following the principles of bottom-up organizing, group members ask residents how they are doing, trying to figure out what their concerns with the community are, and what they think needs to be done to solve them. During this conversation, students have the contact information for all of the organizations we work with, so that if a resident brings up a direct need, they can be reffered to the organization that will be best to work with them on that need.

 During this time, group members are split up into pairs. Each pair is on one side of an assigned street, with a 5th person in the middle coordinating the two groups.

 

 

Day 9 – Traveling. The last day is reserved for traveling. Everyone packs up, clean up, and says their goodbyes. We then drive to the airport.

Frequently Asked Questions

1)      What will we be doing at night?

      As our days are often long and tiring, evenings serve as a good time to shower and

hang out. People may choose to read, write, play music (instruments are more than welcome),

sleep, or talk together. As the trip is also often very emotional, we will have debriefings every

night, during which students can talk about their day, what they saw or learned, or any issues

they may have. It is a time where our group can come together and learn from each other.

One night we may go to a Cajun Seafood restaurant.

 

2)      How will we be traveling while in New Orleans?

      We travel around in a school bus while in New Orleans.  It will be driven by a driver

who will be provided by our sponsor organization, the Interreligous Foundation for

Community Organizing (IFCO). He will transport us between our sleeping and work places,

as well as anywhere else we may go.

 

3)      How much will the trip cost?

            Each nine-day trip will be $300, plus a plane ticket. This will cover food, housing,

     and transportation. Financial aid is available upon request. We will try to accommodate

    everyone as well as we can. If you need more information about how much financial aid is

    available before committing, please fill out an application and indicate this on it, and we will

    contact you individually (applying does not mean committing). In addition, each student will be

    required to fundraise a minimum of $100 before departure via group or individual efforts.

 

4)      Is the Lower Ninth Ward Safe?

      Although there is a common perception that this neighborhood is dangerous, thousands

of volunteers have stayed in the region since Katrina, and there have never been any major

 incidents. Students will be with adults at all times, and will never be alone. Our sleeping site

 is also very well secured.

 

5)      Who will be chaperoning?

      We have many different chaperones on our trips. These chaperones mostly consist of

parents and teachers, and are known and trusted by the organizers. All the chaperones are

 screened through an application process, and if they are not well-known by the organizers,

they meet with one of them before they are accepted to the trip. You will get a chance to

meet the chaperones for your trip at a meeting before you leave.


6)   Where will we be staying?

We have stayed at various places on our previous trips, and therefore have contacts at many

different volunteer housing sites. Where we stay is particular to each trip, and the address and

 details about the site is given to participants at meetings before the trip. Our sleeping sites are

usually churches or larger volunteer centers. All of them are very secure, and equipped with

 bathrooms and showers, and usually bunkbeds or cots.