If We Could

Jomana students love New Orleans 

Many of us are not ready to leave New Orleans, but our time has come to an end and we've loaded the bus and are on our way back to Madison.  There's still so many things we want to see and do.  If we could stay longer, we would . . . 

Build houses

Go back to the site of Make It Right, where Brad Pitt is building homes in the Lower 9th Ward

Go to Congo Square to see all the activities and shops

See street musicians

Check out Mardi Gras celebration

Paint a house in the affected area

Teach kids

Make murals

Help people all around make arts and crafts

Be a part of the 9th Ward Community Village

Help get the New Orleans Six Flags re-opened.

We love our Northside neighborhood like the Lower 9th Ward loves theirs.

All of these are fresh on our minds so it's good to brainstorm ideas.  It is more likely to happen if we spend time thinking about our goals that we met, and ones still out there.  Many of us want to go back to New Orleans, but we also know there is service to be done in our own home town.  

The bus ride seems to be going by much faster, maybe because we already know the route and we're stopping less.  Also, when we left Madison, we had a lot of stuff to look forward to and couldn't wait to get to New Orleans.  Now that we've done our service project and tours, we're returning back to the same 'ol life. 

To get Life in Madison to feel "new" again to us, lets perform service in our home town.  One of the goals of our project was to take the lessons we learned from NOLA, and apply it back to Madison.  We want to give back.   Service in our own city of Madison could be things like . . .

Reach out to other schools to help build a garden like ours

Start more community centers to keep kids out of trouble, especially in the North side

Be a part of building houses for others

Put together reading kits for kids 

Volunteer to coach or mentor young kids in sports

Help in the food pantry

Do arts and crafts in senior center homes.

Creating a garden was one of our service projects

We have learned how to appreciate, and we could also still learn how to give more, instead of always taking.  It would be cool to celebrate our history in Madison like New Orleans does.  They take pride in their history, and it seems like we can make our city more alive if we knew its history and loved its culture.  Speaking for all the Jomana students, we can say that we all love New Orleans!  

Like yesterday's post, we ended with a video with Tia telling us why our trip was an Epic Education.  Here is Vaughn's perspective on our Epic Education.