Notes from Pam Skelly - Crew Photographer (or should I say...Photographer of the Stars!)

For now I'll fill you in on what I know:
The 9th Ward is part of New Orleans. It was hit hard. I think it was the poorest area hit and the lowest. The Musician's Village (pictured previously) is a village built on the land where an old school was located. The large parking area is also used as part of the development. Habitat for Humanity is building it but not the same group as Slidell. It is the group in New Orleans. On Monday, the group doing the build there was having a dedication for one of the homes. There was a crowd of people mulling around and we got to walk in the house. Many neighbors were there and the news. Just down from the house the group is just starting to build a community center for the musicians. So, the first block has houses redone just on the right and then at the end of the street the houses are being built on both sides along with the community center. I'll try to send you pictures of the other side of the road. The houses on that side all need to be redone and have debris out in front. I don't think anyone is working on that area.

Here is a quick story of what we did today but Maureen will be writing a better, more detailed narrative:
We had a short circle and were on our way to our assigned site. The first site was a 25 minute drive. There were several different streets that had homes by the Sidell HH being built. This area though got quite a bit of rain on Monday and the drainage was not good because the yards are still just made of clay without the finished grading and grass. We were told by the crew to go back to the site in Slidell, just five minutes away from the church we met at that morning. I sent the picture of the two houses yesterday. This is the site we ended up spending our day. We put siding on the first house and Dick Johansen worked inside doing electric work. The whole group was quite happy with the progress we made. We hope we can go back and work on the same job tomorrow. Now we will be heading out to New Orleans at 4:00...