Habitat Forming

Blogging way out of date here, but clear away the cobwebs and read on.  I never had a chance to finish with some pics from our trip to New Orleans, this time spotlighting an early morning run that featured the high point of the week, our stop at the home being rehabbed by Middlesex Community College students who travelled to New Orleans to work with Habitat for Humanity and restore a home that was destroyed nine years ago by Hurricane Katrina.

The morning was supposed to feature a boat ride across the Ole' Mississippi for a run in Algiers, but the fog was so heavy, you literally couldn't see the other side, and the ferries were cancelled.  Didn't stop Donna from trying to see the other side of the river, though.

Finally, over to the neighborhood of St. Roch where we found our Roch Star MCC students, along with their trip adviser, Noreen McGuiness Olson, hard at work.

We thought WE were sweating from the humid run until we saw the MCC students who had already been hard at work for three hours by the time we got there!

Team MCC outside their home. Seriously, you want to talk about how to make a difference in someone's like, then look no further than these students who worked NINE HOURS A DAY to fix a home destroyed nearly nine years ago by six-foot deep floodwaters!

Here's a pic of their work in progress

Leaving our MCC stars behind, we soldiered on.  Just a few doors away from the Habitat for Humanity worksite, we ran into this guy, who easily outran us.

Then it was on St. Roch's cemetery.  Mary-Jo and Donna were a bit nervous to enter

The cemeteries here are something to behold.  Very inspiring.

An unforgettable experience passing through these grounds

This cemetery featured a truly inspirational chapel dedicated to miraculous cures.  In a vestibule off to the side, there was a small room which was filled with crutches, leg braces, prosthetics and other medical apparatus.  The pieces had been left there by people who had overcome great adversities in their lives.

And these marble tiles told the messages of the healed

 

From there, it was off to the park named for the godfather of jazz, Louis Armstrong

At the feet of greatness, old Satchmo himself

And all that jazz

Seriously, the statues in this park run the gamut from festive to ornate, and were just too good to pass up

Donna and Mary-Jo make their mad dash from the park

Stopped to pass the boot with some New Orleans firefighters...

And then on to the Superdome!

At this point, I was regretting not wearing some Patriots swag

In a forecast for our upcoming Boston Marathon, we stumbled upon this inspirational trailer

 

The dome's World War II memorial

And yet another random sculpture.  This guy makes Mary-Jo and Donna look jacked!

Finally, back to the hotel, wrapping up our last run.  Couldn't let the week pass without recognizing two ultimate NOLA tour guides who helped us navigate our early morning meanderings, Bill and Ray, the Westin frontmen extraordinaire!

A great run, and one that inspired us on many fronts - the beauty of New Orleans, the grandeur of the Superdome, the tranquility of St. Roch's Cemetery, and most of all, our fabulous MCC students who put their backs and sweat into supporting a truly life-changing organization, Habitat for Humanity.

Who 'dat?  Why just our outstanding students, dat's who!