Common Ground Collective needs N.O. Volunteers

By Lillie Lavado
If you are searching for something meaningful to do this season, why not help Katrina victims of New Orleans? The Common Ground Collective is non-for-profit community based organization with a huge percentage of their staff being volunteers. If you can make to New Orleans to donate some time they will house and feed you for free for any duration. If that is too extravagant, you can hold a variety of fundraisers for items they have listed on their website, www dot common ground collective dot org. John, an honorary member of CSN is currently volunteering with Common Ground and sent us an email about the spanse of need people from the poorer sections of town need. Here is an excerpt :

‘New Orleans is crazy, you won't hear about what's really going on down here any where. No news organization would touch these stories, the battle of New Orleans is about so much more than disaster relief. The government and property owners are closing down low income housing in minority areas that don't have any safety or health issues. These are buildings that barely flooded but are condemned for the profit they'll make by not being designated for low income families. Our organization has rehabilitated one of these projects and moved a hundred families in, opened a community center and negotiated buying rights. Then another so called humanitarian organization came in and bought it out from under us, now those families have until the fourth of January to move out.’

This our country, your country, and that requires us to help others when they are in need. Here is that organization’s email address one more time. www.commongroundcollective.org.