For spring break this year, 15 teens from San Rafael’s Congregation Rodef Sholom passed on trips to Tahoe or the beach. Instead, they traveled to New Orleans to help victims of Hurricane Katrina rebuild their houses and their lives.
Rodef Sholom Rabbi Stacy Friedman led 26 congregants — including those 15 teens — for a weeklong sojourn to the Crescent City. Though they took a few hours to play tourist in the French Quarter, the group members spent most of their time in one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods: the Sixth Ward (known as “The Bloody Sixth” because of the high-crime rate).
Teaming up with a Methodist Church relief organization, the volunteers were tasked with demolishing rotting drywall in storm-battered homes. Friedman and her congregants were overwhelmed by the devastation.
“We saw house after house, family after family, waiting for relief,” she said. “I had no idea that the situation was as bad as it is still. There were some neighborhoods where nobody was inhabiting their homes yet.”
The volunteers eschewed downtown hotels, staying instead in a church-run volunteer center, doing their own cooking and cleaning. That proximity to Katrina’s ground zero made a deep impact on the Marin County contingent, especially on the teens.
“Living in Marin we don’t see that [kind of devastation],” said Friedman. “There was such a state of despair and neglect. And it was such a little bit, what we were able to do. It was a drop in the bucket.”
That didn’t stop them from giving it their all. Besides working up a daily sweat swinging hammers, the volunteers found themselves with an abundance of leftover Passover matzah. Friedman had the kids give it away. “We took it out on the street and gave it to people,” she added. “So we kept seeing these African American men walking around with boxes of matzah.”
Back in Marin County, Friedman says the experience changed the lives of the Rodef Sholom volunteers, and that many would return to New Orleans in a heartbeat.
“I always wanted to work to build a community where we take our tikkun olam seriously,” she said. “Where we don’t just raise money, but work to change people’s lives. This demonstrated that to me.”