When it comes to raising awareness about the true state of the Gulf Coast recovery effort on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the Community Center of St Bernard in Arabi, Louisiana is taking a creative approach. This 501c3 nonprofit organization is currently running an eBay auction where the lucky winner will receive a personal tour of New Orleans from the vantage point of a motorcycle sidecar operated by Iray Nabatoff, a long-term volunteer who serves as the Community Center's Executive Director.
It’s a light-hearted approach that hides a deeper purpose. "Every day you see the devastation all around you, a full 3 years after the hurricane. And you wonder what you can do to make people aware of the situation here,” notes Mr. Nabatoff. “I find it very frustrating that practically no one has even heard of St Bernard Parish, which is adjacent to the well-known Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Yet this area was at the very epicenter of devastation from Hurricane Katrina.”
The general lack of national awareness about St Bernard Parish is particularly unsettling given the enormity of the disaster that these people have endured. St Bernard is the only Parish (county) in the history of the United States to have been completely inundated by flood waters -- 93% of homes in the parish were rated as “severely damaged” or “destroyed”. And hurricane damage to the Murphy Oil Refinery in the Parish caused the largest domestic residential oil spill in US history.
"Hurricane Katrina has touched my life personally in a profound way,” adds Mr. Nabatoff. “I left my home in New Hampshire back in early 2006 to volunteer for 3 weeks, and ended up making a 5 year commitment to helping with the recovery effort in St Bernard Parish. In April 2006 I helped to establish the Community Center of St Bernard so there would be a permanent location where local residents could receive help in what would obviously be a long and difficult struggle to rebuild.”
As the Executive Director (volunteer) of the Community Center, Mr. Nabatoff and his staff work every day to serve people still caught up in the ongoing battle to rebuild their lives. The mission of the Community Center is to provide an all-inclusive, centralized location where hurricane survivors can receive the assistance they need with dignity and respect.
The Community Center provides a wide range of necessary basic services, including free food, clothes, internet access, free long distance and local phones, computer classes, and hot meals. The Center also partners with other organizations to bring in additional free resources such medical care, legal aid, emotional counseling, senior citizen employment services, and food stamp assistance. And it hosts community-building events such as after school programs, dances, public meetings and workshops.
“There remains so much to be done here -- for many of the clients we serve, this is NOT a recovery but merely a later stage in an ongoing crisis,” states Mr Nabatoff. “Though numerous celebrities and aspiring politicians, including Oprah, Amy Goodman and Brad Pitt, have come to New Orleans, they don’t venture beyond the Lower Ninth Ward, so they remain in the dark about the lives and struggles of the people in St Bernard directly next door, separated only by the Jackson Barracks. We hope that this eBay auction will help generate awareness about St Bernard Parish, and we encourage everyone to view the auction and spread word about it, even if it isn’t practical for them to bid.”
To view the eBay auction, which ends September 1, please visit http://tinyurl.com/Win-NOLA-Sidecar-Tour.
