What A Difference One Change Makes

This furniture program at Providence wound up being more of my project than it was ever supposed to be. What an unexpected stroke of luck, for me! I didn’t realize how deeply embedded into the running of the program I had gotten myself until a fellow intern asked me to clarify details of the program to an outside contact. That was an eye-opener, as I had not considered myself qualified to explain the program in any way, shape, or form.

DukeEngage left New Orleans on Saturday. I had been unprepared for our (seemingly) sudden departure. Some of this can be attributed to my working until the very last moment, for we were visiting the residents to check out the new furniture on Friday afternoon. At the end of the day, I rushed to send farewell emails, make the goodbye rounds, and almost forgot to clean out my desk. In the bottom drawer, I found Providence records of information forms and the furniture orders for each of the 43 residents we served. As I turned this file over to my supervisor, I was hit with an abrupt sadness. It was like losing a child. Perhaps I exaggerate. It was like losing a pet. Compromise?

We were lucky. Providence was able to get this furniture program off the ground quickly. Two months ago, we had an approved grant proposal and a partnership with The Salvation Army, and after that, things happened fast. We began our relationship with residents at the June residents’ meeting, introducing ourselves and the program. By the time we presented ourselves to those residents, rumor had preceded us; word had gone around about “free furniture.” They were dubious, I learned much later, as you should be. You have heard of TINSTAAFL, “there is no such thing as a free lunch,” yes? Very little comes free, and I am so proud to have helped oversee a program which is as close as I have ever seen as “free” to its beneficiaries.

Would I ever have believed we could pull this off so quickly? Absolutely not. It amazes me that we could go from grant proposal to complex-full-of-new-furniture in a little over two months. This comes back to something Mitch Landrieu mentioned a couple weeks ago. Mitch Landrieu, the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana, arranged a meeting with the Duke, Penn, Yale, and assorted interns in New Orleans helping with the recovery, and impressively, showed up to speak to us himself. One of the things Landrieu touched upon was the speed of action here in New Orleans. Progress can be made quickly, if there is motivation. From my own perspective, this is the truth. Things in New Orleans can move incredibly quickly on the ground. It took us two months, partnering with both the Salvation Army and a local furniture company, to meet with 43 residents individually, and deliver their new furniture. By the time I left New Orleans, nearly an entire apartment complex had new furniture. That is a pretty damn good feeling.




















^One apartment we left with a bit more than it boasted before.

I left New Orleans with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I have truly enjoyed experience a different city, and indeed, a different culture, this summer. Nine weeks in New Orleans has taught me about work and about life. Still, I realize that New Orleans is not my city. New Orleans and I will never mesh quite the way the ‘Big Easy’ (quotes are absolutely necessary, because while in N’awlins, I had not once heard any person refer to it as such) meshes with some. I was born in the Northeast, and it is in the fast-paced, Northeast vigor and bustle that my heart will stay for a long, long time.

One day as we were returning to the office after a day with the residents, one of my fellow interns brought up a good point. New Orleans contains so many people in great need of furniture. From our experiences meeting with these residents, we know that many of them were so desperate that they took whatever furniture they could lay their hands on. Used beds, loaned chairs, even a sofa from outside on the street. At the other end of the spectrum, we live eight or nine months of the year in a sheltered college world where a good number of kids throw out tons of furniture at the end of every school year, whether from a lack of means to keep it, or from an unwillingness to keep worn furniture. This is an answer to some part of a gaping need elsewhere, but like so many other needs, there’s such a harmful disconnect. How many could be helped if it were possible to siphon off and relocated the excess furniture from college campuses to areas of need? Can it be done?

The night before I left New’awlins, I trekked to Juan’s Flying Burrito on Magazine Street (highly recommended) with a group of interns. After standing in a daunting line for a while, we grudgingly agreed to order our food to-go, figuring we could find an outdoors area with chairs to eat. Walking down Magazine, we realized little by little that our plan may have been a little hasty, and eventually, we plopped ourselves down on a corner to enjoy our burritos. As our soft chatter intermixed with thoughtful silence, I noticed two ladies passing us to cross the street. Not a glance passed our way, not one form of acknowledgment. It was what I would imagine a homeless man on the street might experience. And what did we do? Sit on the curb to eat. Changing a single habit changed the way people on the sidewalk responded to us. We were still Duke students, every bit as arrogant and high-horsed (read the heavy sarcasm) as ever, but we had left custom behind. What a difference one change makes.