Robert Greenwald has put together a short film to show some the continuing problems facing people in New Orleans:

Here’s a few more ways we can do something.

This week marks the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. No doubt, there will be plenty of editorials, politics and calls for help while the spotlight is once again on the Gulf Coast.

Here’s a few ways you can help today:

• Volunteer or donate to Habitat for Humanity
• Search for opportunities on Volunteer Match
• Common Ground Collective is shifting focus to rebuilding and seeking volunteers with expertise in project areas like cooking, construction, roofing, plumbing, electric work, legal aid, social work, media/PR, and computer technology.

My hope is to make a return trip in January ‘08, with the same group I traveled with this past January. Hopefully we’ll get involved in Habitat or some other group focused on rebuilding.

Much more on my lens.

A few of my friends are making a return trip to New Orleans this week, and I wish I could have joined them. News coverage has been steady since our last trip, including some tough questions about the likelihood and the worth of rebuilding.

With all the guarded optimism I can muster, here are a couple of articles that offer us some new hope, again:

City officials have unveiled their billion-dollar rebuilding plan.

The cases against insurance companies are finally starting, with many more likely to follow.

New Orleans can still use all the help and hope we can give them.

I sometimes have a hard time keeping up with all the great work Jill is doing at Squidoo. Today I found out that two of my passions (Squidoo and helping in New Orleans) came together in a really neat way:

We wanted to pass on a heartwarming thank-you note from Rebecca Besch, a 6th-grade teacher in Slidell, Louisiana. In Rebecca’s class, most students lost their computers (and in fact their entire homes) in Hurricane Katrina. But last month, due to the generosity of Squidoo lensmasters, we were able to give Rebecca approximately $1,200 from the Squidoo Charity Fund to purchase two new computers for her classroom via the nonprofit DonorsChoose.

There are hundreds more public-school teachers’ projects available for funding at DonorsChoose.org. And remember, you can always donate your Squidoo royalties to DonorsChoose, too.

From the Squid Blog.

Note: this is part of a series of posts about volunteering in New Orleans.

We worked on four homes while in New Orleans (three, if you count the duplex as one). I interacted with many people during the week, including two of the homeowners we helped. Each interaction was entirely different and had a unique impact on me.

The first home was owned by Brenda. Brenda is a charming second grade school teacher who decided to stick it out and rebuild the home she’d lived in for 32 years. I heard many teachers opted to leave for Texas, where job opportunities and living conditions were much greater post-Katrina.

Brenda made the biggest impact on me. She drives three hours a day to teach her students and responded to me as if I were the one suffering with the work that I was doing, saying a prayer for all the volunteers working on her house and smiling as she told us about her plan to get back home. I was embarrassed to think about the little things I complain about in life.

As Brenda shared her story, I thought to myself, “this is why I volunteered.” Here’s a remarkable woman who just needs a boost. Her combined savings and insurance money won’t cover the entire cost of rebuilding, but with postponing work on the garage out back and getting her house gutted by volunteers, she’s finally able to get the contractors hired and know she’s coming home.

We left Brenda a note asking her to send pictures when that day comes. I can’t wait.

The second house was the duplex, one of those long and narrow homes they call “shotgun homes”. The owner was taken to Houston in the days following the storm, and I thought it was pretty cool we were helping someone who will never know us.

The last house we worked on was owned by Shay, who had a big surprise for us. Shay was chosen as a finalist on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, and later won her own Quiznos franchise in New Orleans (watch the video). Her home is in the Lower 9th Ward, by far the worst area we visited during our trip.

Shay was struggling with getting her new business going, studying everything she needs to know about running the store and trying to get to the point where she can hire staff. In the meantime, she has a lot of long hours ahead. It was a treat to see her excitement as she showed us a picture of her standing next to Ellen as she was given the key to her store and reminiscing about the experience. She made me us the best lunch of the week and delivered it to us while we were working.

And then there’s the people we didn’t help but met along the way. People driving by stopped to thank us for helping their community. (I jumped at the opportunity to get some good restaurant tips). Others thanked us like they were thanking us on behalf of the entire city of New Orleans. The clerk at Circle K thanked us. Jacques at Jacques-imo’s Cafe thanked us, ordered us a round of appetizers before dinner, and a round of Tequila shots on our way out the door I somehow missed out on (I need to slow down, and stay in the back of the line more often). The people who didn’t stop waved enthusiastically as they drove by. People there have waited a long time for something good to happen.

Back at our camp, I heard stories from other volunteers who had made previous trips, including one of my favorites about an elderly couple who attempted to gut their home for about three months. They hardly made a dent, but they never stopped trying. When their name came up in the system, the volunteer team was sent and completed the gutting process in a day. The homeowners stood in their driveway, speechless.

Someone on our team said it best: “We thought we were coming down to help these people, but they ended up helping us.”

I couldn’t agree more.

I’ve been back five days, and I’m still trying to gather my thoughts on the week-long trip I made to help out in New Orleans.

Here’s what I know for sure:

1. New Orleans is far worse than I expected. I guess the media got bored, and I forgot, or thought it was better.
2. There’s a lot of finger pointing and bureaucracy. And a lot of scamming and hard decisions to make about who and how to help.
3. There are some really great people who still need help. I met a few, and they changed my life and my outlook in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
4. Katrina hit almost 18 months ago. If you can make a trip, look around and tell me it doesn’t look like it happened 18 days ago.
5. It is really cool when you get mixed up with people who you’d never meet in your profession or otherwise and work together, eat together, and drive together (34 hours or so, round trip).

I’ve started a lens about the current state of New Orleans and how to help, and posted some pictures.

I wish I could have stayed longer, and I plan to go back. There’s still plenty of work to get done.