Erica Zeno
I can’t believe that I’m about to start my third full week here! So much has happened in the past two weeks, which makes choosing what to write about difficult. I guess I’ll start by saying that this isn’t my first time here in the Crescent City. My dad’s side of the family is from Louisiana and I have been here twice before to visit family in the area. Some of the culture (mostly involving food) is familiar to me because my dad’s family brought it with them when they moved to New York. Strangely enough, I never got a chance to see much of the city during previous visits, so there are many things I’m seeing and experiencing for the first time.
I’m working in the development department of the NO/AIDS Task Force. Nithin and I are in charge of outreach on social media. We also help edit the donations database and help with other projects the department works on. After spending time with Rodney, Michael, and Stefanie from the development department, I knew that I was in for a great summer. They took Nithin and me out to lunch and we all got a chance to talk. First of all, they are hilarious! I feel like I spend a good portion of every workday laughing. Within the first week, I felt right at home among the office banter.
NO/AIDS is much bigger than I thought it would be! On our tour of the building, we met so many great people in our office and in other offices of the organization. One interesting thing I learned was that many people have worked for NO/AIDS since its beginning, and some are former or current clients who are now employees or volunteers. The Task Force has been serving the New Orleans community for 30 years and has formed close relationships with their clients. The people really operate as a family and this is reflected in the work environment. Our major project at right now is Dining Out For Life. Participating restaurants are donating a portion of their proceeds to NO/AIDS on July 17th! We've been posting on Facebook and Twitter to promote the event and featuring different restaurants each day. As a food enthusiast, it makes me so hungry every day to look at menus and pictures of food. I want to try as many of these restaurants as possible!
I’m working in the development department of the NO/AIDS Task Force. Nithin and I are in charge of outreach on social media. We also help edit the donations database and help with other projects the department works on. After spending time with Rodney, Michael, and Stefanie from the development department, I knew that I was in for a great summer. They took Nithin and me out to lunch and we all got a chance to talk. First of all, they are hilarious! I feel like I spend a good portion of every workday laughing. Within the first week, I felt right at home among the office banter.
NO/AIDS is much bigger than I thought it would be! On our tour of the building, we met so many great people in our office and in other offices of the organization. One interesting thing I learned was that many people have worked for NO/AIDS since its beginning, and some are former or current clients who are now employees or volunteers. The Task Force has been serving the New Orleans community for 30 years and has formed close relationships with their clients. The people really operate as a family and this is reflected in the work environment. Our major project at right now is Dining Out For Life. Participating restaurants are donating a portion of their proceeds to NO/AIDS on July 17th! We've been posting on Facebook and Twitter to promote the event and featuring different restaurants each day. As a food enthusiast, it makes me so hungry every day to look at menus and pictures of food. I want to try as many of these restaurants as possible!
Our hour-long commute makes the workday exhausting but we still find time to have fun and explore the city. I’ve ridden the streetcar past all of the fancy houses on St. Charles Avenue and listened to jazz in the French Quarter. We found the Creole Tomato Festival and had some truly creative and delicious dishes. We’ve also had some organized activities on the weekends. The day after we arrived in New Orleans we had a bus tour of the city. We learned about the ways Hurricane Katrina affected different areas and even saw flood lines on buildings where the water was over 20 feet high! We learned more about Katrina during our visit to an interactive exhibit the next Saturday. We spent the morning learning how to cook jambalaya, gumbo, bread pudding, and pecan pralines. In the afternoon, we went to the museum where we followed the timeline of the storm. The exhibit was really fascinating. First, it described the storm’s progress and the city’s evacuation. This led to a room with a simulated hurricane (lights, video, and sound). Next there was information about the aftermath and items found in the wreckage. What I found particularly interesting was the section where they described what went wrong. There were preparation issues like a lack space for refugees and other issues like the length of time it took for disaster relief personnel to arrive. There were also interactive displays about how losing wetlands increases flooding and how engineering issues contributed to the breaking of the levees.
I don’t want this to be too long but I wanted to write a little bit about yesterday. I’m going to go ahead and say yesterday was one of the most fun and exciting days I’ve had in a while! First we went on a swamp tour, which was beautiful. Oh, and I held an alligator! An actual alligator! Yes, I was freaking out and almost didn’t do it. But when else will I ever get to say that I held an actual alligator?? So that was really cool. Later that evening we went to a luau at The Magnolia School, which is a non-profit that supports adults with developmental disabilities. I had such a great time! There was a DJ and plenty of dancing. The clients were all so excited to meet us and they really tired us out on the dance floor! We did the limbo, the Chicken Dance, the Cupid Shuffle and we even Wobbled! It was an evening of pure fun. We just found out that we also get to volunteer at their prom in July! I can’t wait to go back!!
I don’t want this to be too long but I wanted to write a little bit about yesterday. I’m going to go ahead and say yesterday was one of the most fun and exciting days I’ve had in a while! First we went on a swamp tour, which was beautiful. Oh, and I held an alligator! An actual alligator! Yes, I was freaking out and almost didn’t do it. But when else will I ever get to say that I held an actual alligator?? So that was really cool. Later that evening we went to a luau at The Magnolia School, which is a non-profit that supports adults with developmental disabilities. I had such a great time! There was a DJ and plenty of dancing. The clients were all so excited to meet us and they really tired us out on the dance floor! We did the limbo, the Chicken Dance, the Cupid Shuffle and we even Wobbled! It was an evening of pure fun. We just found out that we also get to volunteer at their prom in July! I can’t wait to go back!!