M: How many volunteers support you at any one time?
T: We usually have, now, anywhere between 20 and 50 that will be here each week.
M: When I was here before last year they had a lot of church volunteers. Some of the churches were from New York. I remember them. Do you still have a lot of church groups coming in?
T: No, we haven't had very many church groups. Most of ours are all colleges.
M: But they're trying to coordinate with you?
T: Yes
M: How much has Common Ground grown in the last year?
T: Well, what we've done is gone ahead and shifted from relief work, primarily, to house gutting, which is where we did 3000 homes for rebuilding. Now what we're doing is going ahead and reaching out for skilled volunteer labor to come down and do the work - so what we've done is we've gone ahead and partnered with a couple of universities, who are training their students to hang drywall, and then we bring in carpenters after the drywall has been done, and then after that, bring in finish-painters to come in and paint the interior out.
This is Ben Fox, a volunteer worker who travels with the soup kitchen bus.
M: Which universities?
T: Oh my gosh! Who's coming in next week - new colleges (are) coming in from Florida; Marquette University is coming in from Wisconsin; Tusculum College is coming in from Georgia. Those are the ones that will be coming in between now and the end of the month.
M: Wow! So I imagine Tulane's been in here also.
T: Tulane, yes. Tulane students have come through. Students have a twenty hour minimum for a social service project each semester, so the Tulane students will come in on a variety of weekends during each.
M: OK, great! Is the city of New Orleans helping you guys at all?
T: No.
M: Why is that?
