Common Ground Relief's Community Garden
The food being grown is, of course, for the community. Everything Common Ground does is for the community, and a large, converted school-to-soup kitchen bus sat parked around the back, that loads up and feeds hungry people in the Lower Ninth Ward regularly. Actually, Common Ground Relief, you could say, is a full-service community solidarity organization that not only feeds the hungry, but offers free legal and Notary services, free computer lab/communications services – Internet, tech support, copy, fax and phone, and a host of other services, particularly regarding housing in the Ward.
Converted school-to -ÂSoup bus parked behind Common Ground Relief
Speaking of housing, right across the street was more of the house construction I had witnessed driving along Tennessee Street, but this house, largely completed, was, as I took in its details better, not your run of the mill cube or rectangle, or what Malvina Reynolds used to sing about as "little boxes made of ticky-tacky".
No, I was staring at what you could best describe as a latex green trapezoidal structure with a raised foundation, something you would expect to see at a model homes show, not right here in the Ward. Little did I know that this was but the tip of the iceberg.
A dynamic new style of house is being built in the Lower Ninth by Make It Right
Perhaps now is a good time to ask, with more depth of nuance before I go on, just what is Common Ground Relief? Well, for starters, here is what I wrote in my May 7, 2007 OpEdNews article entitled "Welcome to the Lower Ninth Ward, Where Tragedy and Hope Meet" (click here to view):
Common Ground was founded in the tumultuous days after Katrina struck by social activists Brandon Darby, Scott Crow, King Wilkerson and Malik Rahim with a treasury of $50 and the awareness that, to quote from a March 2, 2006 Alternet article by Billie Mizell, "they could do a better job at helping people than the government of the most powerful nation in the world. Their small monetary investment has grown; the collective now has hundreds of members who have fed, housed and provided medical care for nearly 20,000 people (many more than that in the two years since this was written-Mac)."How did they do it? They went to the houses that were standing and asked the people who were still around, "What can we do to support you?" What they kept hearing: You can't rebuild a community that's buried under tons of garbage. So they started by picking up trash and decomposing animals, and then moved on to putting tarps over homes.
"They began to envision a relief organization radically different from those that had come to Louisiana in Katrina's aftermath. They wanted to bring together people of every background, race and economic level -- doctors working alongside garbage men working alongside cooks working alongside lawyers working alongside kids, all for one common goal. Space in a local mosque was secured for their headquarters, and soon, monetary assistance started pouring in and volunteers started lining up. A medical clinic was opened, and Red Cross immediately began pointing people in need to Common Ground. (Yes, the Red Cross turned the sick away in droves, instead sending them to a tent run by kids and volunteer nurses.) A legal aid clinic was established to offer immediate assistance to those trying to rebuild their lives and to put pressure on the authorities to focus on relief and rebuilding." (source)
Common Ground eventually divided into two separate organizations: Common Ground Relief and Common Ground Health Clinic. Quoting from Wikipedia about the former:
"After forming as a more cohesive organization, Common Ground began recruiting volunteers to help rebuild homes and provide other free services in the Lower Ninth Ward.... Thousands of people have volunteered for various lengths of time, creating an unusual social situation in the predominantly black neighborhoods, since most of the volunteers have been young white people from elsewhere. An ABC News Nightline report described the volunteers as "mostly young people filled with energy and idealism, and untainted by cynicism and despair, and mostly white, [who] have come from across America and from countries as far away as Indonesia.""In addition to providing free food, water, cleaning supplies, protective gear, diapers, and health and hygiene goods, Common Ground has offered legal assistance, day care, tutoring, soil and water testing, and Internet access....." (source)
So Common Ground, to say the least, has always been involved in the housing crisis in the Lower Ninth, how much so at present I was about to learn, because while talking to the volunteers, I had asked one of them if there was a media spokesman available. Just go up the front stairs and ask for Tom, one of them indicated, and so I did. scrambling up the stairs, I stuck my head in the open doorway and asked the first person I saw if I could talk to Tom.
Suddenly a middle-aged fellow about my height, with a pleasant smile, calm demeanor walked out, dressed in shorts and a white tee-shirt. I introduced myself as a free-lancer doing a story for OpEdNews and would he mind if I interviewed him. "Not at all," he replied. His name was Tom Pepper and he is actually the operations director for the organization. This is the conversation that transpired after I exchanged a few pleasantries with him. He leapt right into his volunteer program:
Interview with Tom Pepper, Operations Director of Common Ground ReliefMac: How's Common Ground doing now?
Tom: Well, we are completing our programs with our volunteer groups from colleges that have skilled labor. So we have groups that are coming in tomorrow and then also on Thursday. They are going to be hanging drywall and finishing interiors.
