CNN's Anderson Cooper special on the Katrina two year anniversary shined the spotlight on the extraordinary contributions made by volunteers and AmeriCorps and the ongoing need for more volunteers in the long-term recovery and rebuilding effort in the Gulf Coast. Here is an interview with AmeriCorps NCCC member Arielle Davis from the live broadcast from Camp Hope, a Habitat for Humanity volunteer base camp that has housed tens of thousands of volunteers who have gutted, restored, and built thousands of homes in St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans.

Windows Media

- Transcript -

Anderson Cooper: Well, if it weren’t for ordinary people and dedicated members of groups like AmeriCorps, like some of the young men and women who are behind me tonight we’re pretty certain that there would be far less recovery in the Gulf to report on today. My next guest knows that very well. Arielle Davis originally is from Bellingham, Washington. Now you’ve been working all over the Gulf for the past –what is it – seven months for AmeriCorps?

Arielle Davis: Yeah, something like that. It’s gone by pretty fast.

Cooper: You’re leaving tomorrow.

Davis: Yeah, I am moving back tomorrow and going back up north.

Cooper: What surprised you most here?

Davis: I think just the shear lack of things that have been done. I had expected everything to be so much further along than it really was.

Cooper: In particular the Lower Ninth Ward.

Davis: In particular the Ninth Ward, yes. It was –I think I used the word heinous. I thought that it was appalling that I would go some where and see the type of devastation years after it had occurred.

Cooper: It’s strange because juxtaposed to the French Quarter where life has returned, where stores are open.

Davis: Exactly. You can down and completely forget. I think a lot of tourists do. They come in, they buy something kitschy and cute, and they don’t really go and see the houses that aren’t built and the homes that aren’t there.

Cooper: What do you never want to forget that you’ve seen here?

Davis: I think all the people I’ve helped along the way, of course, and specifically just seeing how it had effected just the local population. I don’t think that I came from a place that really had poverty, had the type of shear deprivation.

Cooper: Arielle, I appreciate all the work you have been doing. Thank you so much, you and all of the other volunteers.

###

RSS Help  Printable Page