10/16/06 Update from craigslist:
Relief Spark has secured housing for volunteers at a
luxury hotel in the downtown area of New Orleans.
We have additional rooms/spaces available for volunteers.
Here is the setup of each room and things you can do as a
group when not volunteering:
Each room can comfortably sleep 5 volunteers (2 full beds
and a sofa sleeper)
Coffeemaker in each room
The ability to take a shower and bath!
Rooftop pool
Support small businesses by eating out as a group - there
are several inexpensive restaurants in walking distance
from the hotel
Support businesses in the French Quarter
Attend the New Orleans Film Festival at Canal Shops on Canal
Go to the Aquarium
Take the Canal St. Ferry to Algiers Point - est. 1867
Take an evening buggy ride
Go for a historic tour of the French Quarter
Go on a haunted tour of the French Quarter
As a group, check out the haunted houses in the area!!!!
Your daily schedule will look like this:
All volunteers leave at 8am for house gutting
Break at noon
Go back to work at 12:30pm
Gut your little heart out until 4pm
Clean up and depart back to hotel at 4:30pm
ALL Relief Spark Volunteers are required to bring the following
with them:
(1) Tyvek suit per day of house gutting
(1) pair of steel toe boots
(1) pair of MSA filters
ALL Relief Spark Volunteers are required to attend the following:
Orientation and safety equipment training
*if you don't attend this, you won't be able to
A) stay with us and
B) gut houses with us
Relief Spark Volunteers gut houses 5-days a week. Due to a
limited staff, we do not offer weekend house gutting
adventures at this time.
Relief Spark is ideal for groups. Within each group, we will
appoint a Team Leader and train this person the first day of
gutting.
If you are volunteering by yourself, please let us know and
we will place you with a team.
Relief Spark has 165 houses to gut. We NEED YOU!
A team of 10 volunteers can gut 1 house in 2 days. Keep this
in mind when making arrangements.
Relief Spark is booking volunteers for November and December
and we will have limited availability so please EMAIL US now!
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Your time - whether online or on the ground with us in New
Orleans is valued by the families we help.
One lady we know by the name of "Rose" has developed wonderful
friendships with many volunteers. She once told us, "The
volunteers give me hope."
For someone who has lost everything - having you come out to
help us means the world to the families we help. As an
organization, we also need your support.
You can help by....
1. Volunteering on the ground. Come on out to New Orleans this
spring or join us for Summer Camp! As we work diligently on
securing housing for volunteers; we are accepting reservations
for Summer Camp! Click here if you or a group would like to
come out and help us!
2. Email us and tell us you want to be a Team Leader in your
hometown. A Team Leader organizes donation drives and spreads
the word on what's really going on here so your community can
get involved. Team Leaders are also responsible for coordinating
volunteers and assisting with any travel plans.
3. Our volunteers need tools such as crowbars, pry bars, hammers,
nail pullers, scoop shovels, wheelbarrows, sledgehammers and other
demolition tools. As a volunteer you can organize a "tool drive"
in your hometown and have a crew of volunteers drive the tools to
us. And yes, they will be working with us for a week or more!
4. Volunteers also need safety gear. Did you know it costs $120.00
per week to supply one volunteer with all the safety gear that is
necessary? We need Volunteers and Team Leaders across the country
to hold donation drives for safety equipment.
Everything can be purchased at Home Depot EXCEPT for working rubber
boots which can be purchased at Wal-Mart for $15.00/pair. A pair of
steel-toe boots will run about $29.99/pair (we ask that Volunteers
purchase this item themselves).
-Tyvek Suit - $9.97 (1 suit needed per day)
-Protective Eyewear - $8.00
-Working Gloves - $3.00
-Rubber Gloves - heavy duty - $6.00
-Air Respirator - with air filters - $27.00
-Hard Hat - $6.29
If you would like to ship us gift cards for Home Depot or Lowe's -
that would be such a huge help to us and enable us to provide gear
for more volunteers - which means gutting more houses! *When sending
us any type of gift card, please send via UPS/Fedex or DHL as postal
mail does not work.
5. Host a fundraiser for Relief Spark and the families we are
helping. We will provide you with all the information on each family
including pictures. We will send you a "wish list" and a necessities
list and help you market the event - including contacting your local
media.