Big Easy Dinner

Thursday, November 18^th (Evening)

Tonight was the final planned event of the week:  a Big Easy dinner at the local Knights of Columbus Hall for Americorps workers and the Nuns' Build volunteers. 

The dinner is prepared by local families to show their appreciation for the efforts of the volunteers. 

We were treated to a delicious dinner of:

• Sweet tea
• Devilled Eggs
• Salad
• Jambalaya
• Macaroni & Cheese
• Carrot Coins (More like a cold salad – a Paula Dean recipe)
• Garlic bread
• Pralines
• King Cake

King Cake is a New Orleans tradition.  It’s sort of a frosted yeast bread, baked in a ring.  Inside each cake is baked a small plastic doll.  Custom is that whomever gets the doll, has to host the next party.  Sister Mary Ellen got the doll.  St. Paul here we come!

It goes without saying that the food was delicious.  After the meal, there were speeches of thanks.

That's Liz McCartney, one of the founders of SBP, wearing the blue scarf.  She can also be seen serving food in the food line picture.   Several folks received awards of hammers, recognizing their efforts on behalf of SBP and Nuns’ Build. 

The final event was a showing a video made by Paul Perez.  (He's standing to the Liz' right.)  His home was damaged by Katrina and he made the video for his family showing how Katrina completed upended his family’s lives and how the efforts of the many “angels” who descended on the area after the storm, helped them get back on their feet and return to some sense of normalcy. 

One of the background songs during the video was the Catholic hymn Come Follow Me.  Spontaneously, the Sisters (& others) present began to sing along to the song.  It was quite moving.

It is truly hard to comprehend the havoc that was wrecked upon this place five + years ago.  I think that almost everyplace we’ve been, excepting downtown New Orleans, was under anywhere from three to twenty feet of water at that time.

Besides the Nuns’ Build volunteers, there were about 40 volunteers from the Church of the Brethren.  CotB is a Christian denomination that originated in Germany in 1708.  They hold the New Testament as their only creed.  As part of their mission, they send teams all over the US and the world to help rebuild disaster sites. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_brethren