Berklee Blogs

First-hand accounts of the Berklee experience

Tag: new orleans 2011

new orleans 2011

Letter from New Orleans: Marian Wilson Featured on Boston.com

“Home is where the heart is” must be the oldest cliché in the book. Yet after spending a week with eight newly acquainted volunteers from Berklee College of Music helping to build a home for a family of displaced Katrina survivors, I have a newfound respect for the cliché.

The thoughts that linger have much less to do with the hours of work covered in sweat, sawdust, and paint, or the quality of work we did (which was excellent, truth be told!); they have everything to do with the people I met and the stories we shared.

Read the rest of Marian’s dispatch from New Orleans on Boston.com.

Read more blogs from the Gracenotes New Orleans 2011 Trip.

Letter from New Orleans: Leigh McLaren Featured on Boston.com

Day One at Habitat for Humanity, and one of the many things I learned today, is that New Orleans is HOT. Not just like the New England summer heat that we complain about in July, but really, really hot.

Despite the heavy heat, we had an amazing first day. We were not sure of our location until we arrived in New Orleans, and we ended up being placed in the 7th Ward, on Allen Street. Berklee College of Music has been a volunteer group to New Orleans every year since 2007.

Read Leigh’s full dispatch on Boston.com!

Read more blogs from the Gracenotes New Orleans 2011 Trip.

Berklee NOLA: Day 2 and 3

Lady from Allen Street (sarcastic and with a smile): “What are you going to do when the rivers of the Mississippi floods us again?!”

Michael Heyman: “We’ll come back and build some more!”

This is the spirit that my team has been clenching onto this week. It’s been two days … we’re tired yet jovial, exhausted yet determined. I think it’s safe to say that we are facing one of the biggest challenges in our lives. For me, I’ve done mostly everything in my life for my own survival … for my own pursuit of knowledge, enrichment, and growth. But standing on the grounds where people have died for much less, and driving through the Ninth Ward by the levees, has really made me rethink everything I’ve done for myself up until this week.

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Onsite in New Orleans

Joe learns to smooth cement.

Greetings from New Orleans, and Berklee’s 5th Annual Gracenotes trip with Habitat for Humanity! We just finished our first day onsite at 1839 Allen Street in the 7th Ward, where we’ll be spending our next 5 days.

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