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| Volunteer chefs serve hundreds of New Orleans residents a special meal for Valentine's week. |
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| In St. Bernard Parish, OBI volunteers work quickly to rebuild a playing field for a school of nearly 1,800 students. |
NEW ORLEANS - Dozens of red roses line banquet tables dressed
in red and white tablecloths. Cooks, decked out in chef hats and coats,
stand with utensils in hand, ready to serve up hot chicken, roasted potatoes,
asparagus and more to their guests of honor: Katrina victims in New Orleans
Parish.
“People are desperate,” said one event volunteer. “It’s been a long,
hard journey and we’ve still got a long way to go.”
This banquet is one of three events OBI and partners sponsored last
weekend for New Orleans residents. In addition to these three major
feeding sites being converted into elegant dining halls, families were
also treated to live music, entertainment and activities such as rock
walls and spacewalks for the children.
“Our goal was to take this everyday experience of eating in a tent and
transform it into a first-class experience to communicate value and love to
them,” said Jody Herrington, OBI’s Disaster Relief Manager.
New Orleans councilmember Cynthia Willard-Lewis presented a proclamation
of honor to OBI President Bill Horan, thanking him for OBI’s service to the
city.
“While the tacticians, the scientists, the engineers and the bureaucrats
were talking about color-coded schemes of what could not be done . . . Operation
Blessing said we will bridge the gap,” Willard-Lewis said.
Across town, however, there were no roses or linens. Only diamonds. Baseball
diamonds, that is. In the St. Bernard Parish, three schools devastated by Katrina
joined together to form St. Bernard Unified School, teaching grades K-12. Yet
while the school had reopened, the sports field that lay adjacent to it was in
disrepair.
“When we opened the school, we thought we’d have maybe 200 kids,” said Principal
Wayne Warner. “But we started out with twice that many and now we have 1,750
students.”
With so many students and no place for after-school sports or recreation,
Operation Blessing decided to restore the field from the ground up. They power-washed
and repainted buildings repaired the concession stand, box office and scoreboards,
and shoveled in enough new dirt for three baseball diamonds.
All in time to kick off spring softball season. Now with a ready field, St. Bernard
Unified will be able to do what would have been impossible: start off the season
with a home game.
“You don’t take as much for granted,” said one student. “You could lose everything
again. So you love what you have.”
HOW YOU CAN HELP
You can help by making an online donation toward OBI's disaster relief efforts. With your support, we can continue to provide emergency relief and recovery. Please make an on-line donation today.
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2012
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