Emergency Communities
Encyclopedia
Emergency Communities was a volunteer organization which formed after Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

 in 2005. It provided meals and other relief to residents and emergency responders, first in Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

, then in Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

. Emergency Communities ran sites in St. Bernard Parish, Plaquemines Parish, and Orleans Parish's Lower Ninth Ward, and then closed its doors on Thanksgiving of 2007. Nonprofit organization lowernine.org took the reins with regard to Emergency Communities' rebuild work, and continues to work on Eldorado Street rebuilding homes for residents of this devastated community. As of June, 2009 lowernine.org has rebuilt twenty homes, in addition to working on hundreds of projects large and small across the community.
Emergency Communities began with assistance from the International Humanities Center, which provided 501[c](3) fiscal sponsorship. Many key Emergency Communities volunteers met at the New Waveland Cafe & Clinic in Waveland
Waveland, Mississippi
Waveland is a city located in Hancock County, Mississippi, on the Gulf of Mexico. It is part of the Gulfport–Biloxi, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area. The City of Waveland was incorporated in 1972. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 6,674...

, Mississippi. This cafe provided meals, medical services and free goods for local residents. On 1 December 2005, the café closed its location, which was located in the parking lot of Fred's Department Store on U.S. Route 90
U.S. Route 90
U.S. Route 90 is an east–west United States highway. Despite the "0" in its route number, U.S. 90 never was a full coast-to-coast route; it has always ended at Van Horn, Texas. A short-lived northward extension to U.S...

 in Waveland. In November, Emergency Communities was incorporated. By 12 December the group had begun serving meals in a parking lot in Arabi
Arabi, Louisiana
Arabi is a census-designated place in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana on the East Bank of the Mississippi River, between the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana and Chalmette within the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan area...

, Louisiana, just outside of New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...

. This operation, dubbed the Made With Love Café, continued through June 2006. It provided up to 1400 meals per day to government workers, relief workers and returning residents in and around St. Bernard Parish
St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana
St. Bernard Parish is a parish located southeast of New Orleans in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Chalmette, the largest city in the parish. As of 2000, its population was 67,229. It has been ranked the fastest-growing county in the United States from 2007 to 2008 by the U.S....

, the civil parish where the café was located. The site, formerly an off-track betting parlor, became recognizable by its large tents and geodesic dome
Geodesic dome
A geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure. When...

.
As of 08 May 2006, Emergency Communities volunteers had included approximately 300 from AmeriCorps
AmeriCorps
AmeriCorps is a U.S. federal government program that was created under President Bill Clinton by the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 and later expanded by 50 percent under President George W. Bush...

/NCCC
National Civilian Community Corps
National Civilian Community Corps , or AmeriCorps NCCC is an AmeriCorps program that engages 18– to 24-year-olds in team-based national and community service in the United States. National Civilian Community Corps teams complete about four different six- to eight-week-long projects during their...

 or others supported by grants from the Corporation for National and Community Service
Corporation For National and Community Service
The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America, and other national service initiatives...

. On 1 June 2006, Emergency Communities shut down its outdoor operation in St. Bernard Parish,as part of the exit strategy the nonprofit Community Center of St Bernard in Arabi, was founded. Using its innovative Community Connections Model, the Center currently helps more than 5,300 unduplicated clients every year receive basic resources like food, clothes, legal aid, basic medical care, computer classes, financial literacy programs, senior citizen employment training, income tax preparation, information and referrals, and much more. On the same date, Emergency Communities served its first meal at a new location in Buras, Louisiana.
On June 30, 2007, Emergency Communities closed the Y-Cafe in Buras and redeployed its resources to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. A new organization, People for Plaquemines, carried on the mission of rebuilding lower Plaquemines Parish.

Emergency Communities no longer accepts volunteers on the Gulf Coast. However, their sister organization, lowernine.org
Lowernine.org
lowernine.org is a volunteer organization established in 2007, after the end of Emergency Communities, one of the first nonprofit organizations formed as of the result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005...

, is continuing the work of rebuilding in the Lower Ninth Ward.

External links

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