Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ACORN.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is the nation's
largest community group of low- and moderate-income families. Its mission is working to-
gether for social justice and stronger communities. It's been around since 1970 and has
chapters in 75 U.S. cities. Since Katrina, much of its volunteer work has been refocused to
New Orleans, where it has been instrumental in gutting and cleaning low-income housing.
Every weekday, volunteers meet at 7:30 a.m. and work until 2:30 p.m.
ACORN,
1016 Elysian
Fields
Avenue, New Orleans,
LA 70117, 617-359-7240,
www.acorn.org.
Common Ground Collective.
Just days after Katrina, this grassroots group started providing
medical assistance and supplies to hurricane victims. Now its activities are varied and shift
with the seasons. Besides cleanup and rebuilding, it offers a health clinic and a women's shel-
ter. Its members even tutor kids, refurbish churches, and have a wetlands reparation program.
Operating out of an abandoned Ninth Ward school, the organization has hosted volunteers
from more than a hundred countries. You'll get free room and board at St. Mary of the Angels
School.
Common Ground Relief,
2225 Congress, New Orleans, LA 70017, 504-218-6613,
www.commongroundrelief.org.
Emergency Communities.
EC needs volunteers for its makeshift café (you may have heard
about the Made with Love Café, which opened in St. Bernard Parish right after Katrina) and
community center in Buras. EC was founded by a group of self-described hippies who were
adept at setting up large-scale outdoor kitchens at concerts, conventions, and forest gather-
ings. They reasoned they could apply that skill to disaster zones.
After Katrina, EC was one of the first organizations to arrive on the Gulf Coast and start
feeding people. Its café feeds thousands of relief workers and residents and has become a
popular meeting place. “A volunteer might do anything from gut a house to cook a meal to
play with kids,” says volunteer coordinator Katherine Pangaro.
Emergency Communities,
4316 Baronne Street, Suite D, New Orleans, LA 70115,
347-351-9559, www.emergencycommunities.org.
