[StBernard] Mundelein volunteer to help Katrina victims

[Westley Annis]

Mundelein volunteer to help Katrina victims
By Russell Lissau | Daily Herald Staff
Published: 10/29/2007 12:06 AM
More than two years after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, a Mundelein
resident is headed to Louisiana to help rebuild homes there.

Dana Potts will work in St. Bernard Parish with a San Francisco nonprofit
group called One Brick from Nov. 5-9.

One Brick volunteers from elsewhere in the Chicago area, New York, San
Francisco and Washington, D.C., are participating in the effort, too.

Potts, who's an event coordinator with One Brick, was inspired to join the
effort by a friend, Laura Olivares of Mundelein, who worked in the parish
earlier this year with the group.

"She said it was an awesome trip and (I) had to go," said Potts, 32, a local
marketing manager for Sprint.

A coastal area southeast of New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish was ravaged by
the storm and resulting flooding. Every residential and commercial building
in the parish was damaged and rendered uninhabitable, according to One
Brick's Web site, www.onebrick.org.

Many neighborhoods, including upscale areas, remain deserted. Olivares, who
went there in July with One Brick, recalled seeing bicycles and other
personal belongings still on the ground where residents abandoned them as
they fled the storm two years ago.

"I was amazed at how devastated it still was," she said. "(It was) like a
ghost town."

Olivares said Potts can expect to work six- to eight-hour days, repairing
damaged homes or building new ones.

Potts is looking forward to the experience the camaraderie it brings.

"Everyone says they're long days, but they're not long days when you're
working with a great group of people," he said.

As for Olivares, she's not making this trip but hopes to return to St.
Bernard Parish with One Brick.

"I'm definitely going again," she said.