Stu: We travel there to build and restore, but the benefits are clearly for us - we are strengthened by this rewarding experience and it never fails that when we wrap up a KUK visit, Larry, David and I commit to the next trip. And the next, and the next. We are all hooked, and happily so. David: New Orleans will not be the city it was but we have an opportunity to make it better than it was.

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My guests today are David Goodman and Stuart Himmelfarb, two of the three leaders of the Klene-Up Krewe that just returned from New Orleans. Welcome to OpEdNews, Stu and David. This wasn't your first trip down to the Gulf Coast, by any means. Care to tell our readers how this all came about?

David: I lived in New Orleans as a student at Tulane University. I embraced the city and was embraced by the warmth of its people. I was an 18 year old living far from home, with no local family. The charm of the city and the friendliness of the people helped me to thrive in the unfamiliar environment. I came to love Tulane, the city and the people of New Orleans.

I was horrified to watch the pain on the faces of the people left in New Orleans over Labor Weekend 2005 as Hurricane Katrina struck the city. I was frustrated by the failure of government to respond appropriately to the needs created by the storm and subsequent flooding. These people did not deserve to be treated this way.

I felt I need to do something to help out. My first attempt was to head to Houston with a group of other people from my community to help with evacuees at the Astrodome. Unfortunately, I could not make arrangements to get there. I was then asked to chair our local Jewish Federation's Emergency Campaign to raise funds to help provide solutions to the needs in the Gulf Coast. I was updated regularly on the situation on the ground to help decide where our community's funds were be best used.

It was during this time that I discovered that Larry Weiss, a co-Berrie Fellow [Stu will explain the Berrie program in a moment] was also interested in going to New Orleans to help out. Larry had lived and worked in New Orleans in the late 1970s. The two of us met and we decided we would plan to bring a group from our community to New Orleans to help wherever it was needed. Larry and I agreed that we needed some credibility to our trip, rather than have a "Larry and David's Excellent Adventure in New Orleans." We turned to Stuart Himmelfarb, the Berrie Fellowship Program Director at our Federation to see if we could get Federation's support to add some credibility to our trip, as well as offer a much wider area of promotion of the trip. We not only got Federation's support, we also got Stu to be a partner on our trip.

Stu, please tell us a little about the Federation, what a Berrie fellow is, and what it was like for you to jump on board this project.

Stu: My response must be both professional and personal regarding how I got connected to the Klene-Up Krewe and New Orleans.

As David mentioned, I worked with him and Larry Weiss as Director of the Berrie Fellows Leadership Program. They were part of the inaugural cohort of 24 Fellows. The Fellowship is an intensive Jewish leadership and learning program funded by the Russell Berrie Foundation. The goal of the program is to identify, inspire, educate and connect with the highest potential leaders in the community and prepare them with the Jewish and leadership learning and skills to help them lead our community.

We focus on many issues, from their personal values and motivation to lessons we can learn as leaders from Jewish history and texts. Larry and David's cohort has been joined by a second group and there is now an active alumni group of more than 40 Fellows. Virtually all of them are leaders and activists in agencies, organizations and synagogues throughout northern New Jersey and beyond. And, we are proud to announce approval by the Berrie Foundation of plans for a third cohort which will start in summer 2011. What's really exciting is that the Fellows are part of the team designing the curriculum and our recruitment plans. A true partnership!

Back to New Orleans. The Berrie Fellowship focuses on leadership in action"and Larry and David are a prime example of this. They saw a problem, connected with it on both personal and leadership levels, and made a commitment to get involved in the rebuilding effort in the Gulf Coast. We at Federation saw this as totally consistent with our mission of providing central leadership in our community and rallying people from all over northern New Jersey to move beyond their generous financial support for post-Katrina rebuilding to hands-on involvement.

The three of us worked as partners at each step of the way. We divided the tasks, compared notes, and made quick decisions. From the first moment, we were motivated by a desire to do as much as we can to help. We also decided that every participant, including me as a professional staff person, would pay his or her own way. As a result, everything we do, from meals to buses to projects, would be totally shared.

I mentioned my personal connection. Yes, I did this as the Berrie Fellowship Director, but from the outset, this was a project with deep personal meaning. I had never been to New Orleans until the first Klene-Up Krewe trip and I was hooked. There is no place like New Orleans. The people and the places. The feeling of community. A small town where people are working together. And also a place where you can have so much fun.

I brought my wife and son on a few of the trips and that sealed the deal. As occurred with many Krewe members, the chance to work alongside your kid is the most rewarding part of the experience. This meant we were helping the people of New Orleans but we were also helping ourselves because the truth is that we get even more out of these experiences than the people we aim to help.

On the day of President Obama's inauguration, we were wrapping up our fourth trip"and I stood with my son in the lobby of the hotel watching him take the oath of office. The two of us said there was no place we'd rather be on that special day than working to help New Orleans rebuild"and to be together.

Bottom line, I am the fortunate one here. I get to fulfill professional goals regarding leadership and mobilizing volunteers. But, on a personal level, have gotten a chance to have a deeply meaningful and rewarding experience with my family. As the early Zionists in Israel said, "we build and we are built up." What more could one ask for?

This November trip was the seventh one that you've organized over the years. What was it like down here the first time after Katrina?

Stu: It was a mess. Even though a full year had passed since the storm, there were still overturned cars and we watched as National Guard troops patrolled neighborhoods in HumVees. Driving at night, we could see the broad areas that still lacked electricity, not to mention any public services and utilities that we take for granted. Bottom line: it was hard to believe we were in a major city in America.

In the Lakeview area, we worked with an amazing grassroots group called Beacon of Hope and cleared yards so that homes would at least look lived-in. But they were just empty, ghastly hulks. You could see through them like they were Hollywood sets. And the smell, the mold, the debris"all conspired to make the area a mess. So, we chopped and pulled and scraped"and ended up making the yards presentable (which also insured that the city would know the homeowner still cared about his or her property). Note that Beacon of Hope was a grassroots organization. The government in 2006 seemed uninvolved and there was no sense, at any level - national, state, or local - that progress was being made or facilitated by them. This was an act of people power.

Now, as we drive through Lakeview, so many houses are repaired and people are living in them. Its beauty has been restored and people have returned. We're thrilled to see that, and only hope this picture can be repeated in places like the Lower Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish where, unfortunately, the pace of restoration has been slower and the challenges even greater.

Tell our readers what we're looking at here, Stu.

Stu: A twisted hulk of a car in the Lower 9th Ward. Our sense was that this area was the last to be cleared even though it was the hardest hit. It was as if a bomb hit this neighborhood, street after street of devastation.

We arrived less than a week after the first "anniversary," when President Bush was interviewed on the street in the 9th in front of Fats Domino's house"it looked so nice on TV. But, as we saw, it was like a movie set: the front was cleaned up but the houses to either side and the house interior were devastated. This is a metaphor for the way the government failed NOLA in the early years, surface efforts but no substance, no real help.

David: Joan, I want to add my comments regarding our first visit to the Gulf Coast after Katrina. I had been to NOLA in 2004 so, when I returned after Katrina, I was overwhelmed by the destruction and damage I observed. There were no birds, no children playing and an eerie silence. Many areas had no services and the Army was patrolling the city.

The downtown area was a shell of its former self. I had never seen so many business closed in one place. We traveled to Mississippi one day. On the ride back to NOLA that night, there were no lights or cars moving in the neighborhoods along the highway. This scene lasted for many miles. It was surreal. It was hard to believe that I was in the United States.

Since then, you've put together very intense three-day trips for folks from Bergen County, NJ. [I was the only participant from the Chicago area.] How did you decide on such a short trip and what can be accomplished in just three days? Also, how have you come up with the specific projects that the group works on?

David: Joan, As a Jewish-based group traveling under our Federation's name, we believed that we should comply with Jewish observances, including providing kosher food when possible and not working on Shabbat [Jewish Sabbath]. This made the trip inclusive for all members of the Jewish community but also limited the days we could work. We also wanted to be sensitive to people who had limited vacation time from work and to minimize the number of school days that would be missed by teens participating on our trip. This is how we arrived at the Sunday to Tuesday schedule.

Our first two trips took place on randomly selected weekends where the trip began on Sunday morning and ended on Tuesday. We had a great number of attendees. On our first trip, there were no teens. However, as we began to plan our second trip, there was a lot of interest by parents to have their teenage children join them. After the second trip, we received feedback from parents about how they enjoyed sharing this experience with their child.

Since we knew that there would be more help needed in NOLA, we decided that we wanted more parents to bring their teens for our third trip. In order to attract more of the parent/teen combination, we wanted to choose a holiday weekend where Monday was a nonreligious holiday and we would be engaging in activities in the spirit of the day. We chose Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in hopes that we would get a great turnout. We have had success with this format. We have had three trips over MLK Weekend and our fourth is being planned for that weekend in January, 2011.

We know from the over 200 people that have joined us, that the work being done over the three-day period is satisfying and intense. The people working for the organizations where we volunteer are always appreciative of the work we are doing and the help we have offered. There is something special about the people that live in New Orleans, whether a native or someone who has relocated since Katrina. There is a passion that is contagious. It seems that everyone on our trips feels that passion early on and makes an effort to make a difference in the short time we are there. We have had people join our trips two, three, four and five times.

Both Larry Weiss and I have connections in New Orleans to help us find meaningful organizations that can use our help. We have also used other sources to recommend organizations to us. The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans and The Tulane University Center for Public Service are the two sources that we use most often. We have been lucky to find organizations that we continue to work with each time we visit. Just the Right Attitude (a food pantry and soup kitchen) and St. Bernard Project (home rebuilding) are two organizations where the needs are great and they are always in need of volunteers.

Klene-Up Krewe VII, November, 2010

So, are we almost done yet? Do you foresee the day when there will no need for this kind of trip?

Stu: My opinion is that, unfortunately, we will not see an end to the need in Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes for years. We see people who are poor and left-behind and, five years after the storm, still have not been able to get back in their homes or on their feet. I believe this is why St. Bernard Project added a counseling component; there is much more than physical damage throughout the area.

What's more, we will not stop going until the job is done. We are already planning our eighth trip in January and the response is enthusiastic. It speaks well of our Federation and our community that the commitment to NOLA is unabated, even if many others have moved on. We all love the city and people of New Orleans, and that affection inspires us to keep working, and returning.

And, by the way, even after the physical repairs are complete, the need for grassroots volunteers to help those in need, those left behind despite our nation's affluence, will undoubtedly continue. So our work will shift from hammers and nails to other ways to help.

The early Zionists who built Israel (then Palestine) said they built and they were built up. It is an apt statement for how we feel about our work in New Orleans. Yes, we travel there to build and restore, but the benefits are clearly for us - we are strengthened by this rewarding experience and it never fails that when we wrap up a KUK visit, Larry, David and I commit to the next trip. And the next, and the next. We are all hooked, and happily so.

Stu and David take time out at Cafe Maspero, NOLA

David: Joan, I echo Stu's response. There is loads of work to be done to rebuild New Orleans. It will take years. Scott Cowen, President of Tulane University, recognizes that the city has been changed forever. He has said that New Orleans will not be the city it was but we have an opportunity to make it better than it was.

Well, we're all certainly giving it a shot! Thanks so much for talking with me; it was a pleasure. I just got home Monday night and I'm already psyched for my third KUK trip with you next November. See you then!

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Other articles in the Focus on New Orleans series (with more to come):

Focus on New Orleans: Time Out with Jermaine Wiltz AKA Coach J November 10, 2010

Focus on New Orleans: "Build for James" Project Honors Americorps Teammate November 12, 2010

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.