MATC Alternative Spring Break
Work still to be done
Work still to be done
By Jonathan Gramling
Instead of spending their spring break working or lying in the sun, Johel Saborio, Ann Goth
and eight other MATC students headed for New Orleans to pitch in with housing rehabilitation
efforts in St. Bernard Parish, located southeast of the city of New Orleans. In this parish —
Louisiana’s equivalent of a county — 100 percent of its 47,000 housing units were deemed
uninhabitable after Hurricane Katrina devastated the county in August 2005.
Saborio and Goth were veterans in the effort. This was Saborio’s second trip down and the
fourth for Goth. Saborio was the coordinator of this year’s trip — Goth had coordinated the
previous two years — and made arrangements with Habitat for Humanity for the volunteers to stay
at Camp Hope, a facility specifically set up to house and feed volunteers. He also set up the
volunteers’ work on single family houses through the St. Bernard Project, which was recently
recognized on CNN’s Heroes initiative.
The students took two vans down to the New Orleans area, making the trip without staying
overnight. Each student paid $500 to cover transportation, meals and lodging. They stayed at
Camp Hope at night and drove out to their projects to work each day.
| MATC students Johel Saborio (l) and Ann Goth spent their spring break working on housing projects in New Orleans |
Saborio’s crew laid down flooring in two homes and didn’t work with the owners of the homes at all. It had no running water. “You would have to go to the
gas station about a half mile away in order to use the restroom,” Saborio said. “The houses we were working on didn’t have the bathrooms working. We went to
the gas station twice and then the third time; he put a sign in the door that the restroom wasn’t for public use. Then we started going somewhere else.”
Goth’s crew painted a man’s house and worked side-by-side with him. The owner and his family became close to the crew by the time their week was up.
Goth said it was hard to leave.
While there is a tremendous amount of work that still needs to be done in the New Orleans area, Saborio and Goth have seen some progress. “Last year
when I was working in St. Bernard Parish, there were a lot of houses that were torn down,” Saborio said. “There were a lot of houses that were uninhabitable. Now
we see that there are people living in some of the houses we were working on. There are owners working on their own houses. People are coming back, little by
little. Businesses are coming back.”
“It’s a slow process,” Goth emphasized. “I do notice that there have been small steps taken. But the recovery is a very small process. There are some people
who have come back. There are some people who don’t want to come back. Some people don’t have a home to come back to. FEMA trailers are no more
because of the formaldehyde. Some people don’t have the means to come back.”
While many people are shocked by what they see when they come to work on the housing, Saborio has seen such scenes of devastation and poverty
before. “I’m from Costa Rica,” Saborio said. “Where I grew up was really poor. So it wasn’t new to me. In order to recover from this, the people of New Orleans
need help. I felt like I was giving back. I’ve been getting a lot of help in this country. Now I can give back. That’s a good thing.”
The scenes of New Orleans fill Goth with gratitude. “I’ve learned to be thankful for everything,” Goth reflected. “Be thankful you have a house to live in and
a roof over your head. Be thankful for your family. And be thankful for the convenience that you have, for a Walgreens on every corner and a Wal-Mart on both
sides of town. On something like this, you also get to work with different people and different personalities. I feel like an advocate for the people who were
affected by Katrina. I feel they have been forgotten and there is a lot of ignorance, especially around the race because of the way New Orleans was portrayed
on television after Katrina. It was portrayed as a bunch of poor Black people, looting nonetheless. It was such a negative way they were portrayed on television.
No one remembers them. We always say ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.’ You can’t. These people don’t have anything. They don’t have a house to live in
and they don’t have the money to get their house fixed. I really get angry when I hear ignorant comments about the people of Ne w Orleans and the people who
survived Katrina. I advocate in a good way, not in an angry way.”
Both Saborio and Goth plan to return to New Orleans. While Saborio can return as a student next year, Goth will be a graduate. “Someday, I would like to
move to New Orleans,” Goth said. “I made a lot of friends.”
gas station about a half mile away in order to use the restroom,” Saborio said. “The houses we were working on didn’t have the bathrooms working. We went to
the gas station twice and then the third time; he put a sign in the door that the restroom wasn’t for public use. Then we started going somewhere else.”
Goth’s crew painted a man’s house and worked side-by-side with him. The owner and his family became close to the crew by the time their week was up.
Goth said it was hard to leave.
While there is a tremendous amount of work that still needs to be done in the New Orleans area, Saborio and Goth have seen some progress. “Last year
when I was working in St. Bernard Parish, there were a lot of houses that were torn down,” Saborio said. “There were a lot of houses that were uninhabitable. Now
we see that there are people living in some of the houses we were working on. There are owners working on their own houses. People are coming back, little by
little. Businesses are coming back.”
“It’s a slow process,” Goth emphasized. “I do notice that there have been small steps taken. But the recovery is a very small process. There are some people
who have come back. There are some people who don’t want to come back. Some people don’t have a home to come back to. FEMA trailers are no more
because of the formaldehyde. Some people don’t have the means to come back.”
While many people are shocked by what they see when they come to work on the housing, Saborio has seen such scenes of devastation and poverty
before. “I’m from Costa Rica,” Saborio said. “Where I grew up was really poor. So it wasn’t new to me. In order to recover from this, the people of New Orleans
need help. I felt like I was giving back. I’ve been getting a lot of help in this country. Now I can give back. That’s a good thing.”
The scenes of New Orleans fill Goth with gratitude. “I’ve learned to be thankful for everything,” Goth reflected. “Be thankful you have a house to live in and
a roof over your head. Be thankful for your family. And be thankful for the convenience that you have, for a Walgreens on every corner and a Wal-Mart on both
sides of town. On something like this, you also get to work with different people and different personalities. I feel like an advocate for the people who were
affected by Katrina. I feel they have been forgotten and there is a lot of ignorance, especially around the race because of the way New Orleans was portrayed
on television after Katrina. It was portrayed as a bunch of poor Black people, looting nonetheless. It was such a negative way they were portrayed on television.
No one remembers them. We always say ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.’ You can’t. These people don’t have anything. They don’t have a house to live in
and they don’t have the money to get their house fixed. I really get angry when I hear ignorant comments about the people of Ne w Orleans and the people who
survived Katrina. I advocate in a good way, not in an angry way.”
Both Saborio and Goth plan to return to New Orleans. While Saborio can return as a student next year, Goth will be a graduate. “Someday, I would like to
move to New Orleans,” Goth said. “I made a lot of friends.”