School Gutting

Today was our fifth day here and instead of the usual house gutting or de-molding experience, we had a new challenge: school gutting. Pre-Katrina New Orleans had around 120 schools (I'm not sure if that is 120 elementary schools or all k-12) and now, 9 months after the hurricane only 20 of those 120 have re-opened. So today, myself and 30-40 other HandsOn and AmeriCorps volunteers began gutting a nearby elementary school. This was a very overwhelming project. There are so many classrooms with so many desks, books, art supplies, papers, toys, and tables that we worked for hours and only a few classrooms actually got cleared out. I cringed everytime I had to throw out a brand new chair or a package of never used books. Although it seemed like all these things were perfectly fine, the mold spores are quite the nasty little problem. In a building such as a school, mold from the very bottom can produce spores that float up, into the ventilation and throughout the entire building. Therefore, books that, to the naked eye were perfect, actually may have had mold spores everywhere on or in them. I relalized how much work it will take to gut and rebuild this one elementary school and when I started thinking about it, I became very overwhelmed. Not only for myself and the rest of the volunteers on site that day but for everyone who will contribute to the re-opening of all New Orleans' schools. Having schools open is such a powerful and important thing for a city. Knowing that children would one day (hopefully very soon) be able to return to that building knowing that they dont have to worry about mold or respiratory infections was my motivation today. There were so many times I didnt think I could possibly lift one more stack of books or one more tiny chair I had to think of the children who are not in school now and will return to that or any other New Orleans school soon.

~Brittany Dalzell