Bikes To Mobilize New Orleans
On March 4th and 5th, 2006, dozens of Bikes Not Bombs volunteers packed a 53-foot trailer with 616 donated bicycles destined for Plan B Bikes in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans. Plan B is a volunteer-run community organization founded in 2000 by a group of activist-minded bike enthusiasts as a space for sharing tools and knowledge. Since the devastation after Hurricane Katrina, Plan B has been distributing reconditioned bicycles to hurricane survivors, and to community aid volunteers arriving from around the country. As BNB's founder Carl Kurz notes, "Lack of mobility is a prime way in which people get marginalized from resources and services. Bikes can solve critical transportation needs."
Six volunteer mechanics from BNB - Alex Twombly (a BNB Bike Shop manager), Liat and Abby Hoffman, Ann Adelsberger, David Gilbert, and Chris Bull (of Circle-A Cycles, Providence) - flew down to New Orleans in time to spend a week rebuilding the bikes sent from Boston. Also meeting the trailer was Tracy, a graduate of BNB's Earn-A-Bike and Vocational Training programs, who arrived in October 2005 for relief assistance. With a group called the Hurricane Autonomous Workers Collective, Tracy (who prefers the gender-neutral pronoun "ze" instead of he or she) has been working with local groups to remove fallen trees, clean up debris, and gut flooded houses. Ze describes a shocking scene of toxic pollutants and debris, particularly in the Lower 9th Ward, where ze has been ripping contaminated drywall and furniture out of houses. They have plenty of respirators, gloves, and jumpsuits to protect themselves from the pollutants. But, Tracy says, "you can't protect against everything when just walking down the street is poisonous."
By now, the failure of the Federal, State, and local governments to protect New Orleans residents from this disaster or to provide them aid in its wake is well documented. But the real news, and hope, in New Orleans is in the stories of local residents organizing community-based relief efforts to do for themselves what the government didn't. In the heavily flooded Treme neighborhood of the 7th Ward, a community organizer named Mama Dee has turned her home into a relief center for the community. A sign out front reads: "Rescue, Return, Restore." Manuel Mercator, a volunteer at Mama Dee's House, spent the days following the hurricane in a small boat rescuing his neighbors from rooftops. At Mama Dee's, they are still rescuing people, and Manuel says: "it's more than just saving a life, it's saving people's spirit, thoughts, and sanity."
Plan B had already donated 20 bikes for distribution through Mama Dee's house, as well as tools to set up a small shop there. They have established similar relationships with churches and community organizations, such as Emergency Communities in St. Bernard Parish, to distribute bikes to people that need them, and to provide tools and training in bike repair and maintenance. Bicycle organizations from around the country are helping; Positive Spin in Morgantown WV was the first to ship bikes, followed by Working Bikes in Chicago, Recycle-A-Bike in Providence, and Free Ride in Pittsburgh. At first, explains John Gerken, a volunteer at Plan B, they just sold the bikes on a sliding scale starting at $15, in the weeks following the hurricane when people were desparate and simply had no other transportation. This shipment from BNB, he says, will be distributed through community organizations such as Mama Dee's, and Plan B continues to mobilize volunteer aid workers with bikes on loan.
Before the hurricane, Plan B had just completed one year of a new Earn-A-Bike program (modeled in part after BNB) in addition to their bike repair program at the New Orleans Charter Middle School. The school was flooded; tools and 150 bikes they had on site were destroyed. John hopes they will start those programs up again soon, but the youth that participated were largely evacuated from the city - most have not returned. He estimates that in the 8th ward, a working class African American neighborhood where many of the youth participants lived, only 20% of residents have returned, in stark contrast to the wealthier French Quarter and Baywater areas which are largely back to normal.
Community relief organizations currently operating in New Orleans include the Common Ground Collective, Bayou Liberty Relief, and the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Project (PHRF). While these organizations are still working to salvage and restore buildings at the same time as organizing residents to fight for better services and assistance, the Red Cross cut back its food distribution centers months ago and FEMA trailers sit in lots unused. Ingrid Chapman, a carpenter from California volunteering with PHRF, writes: "They need support but the collective will is there ... I know the movement here can strengthen the movement everywhere."
Carl Kurz, BNB's founder and shipping coordinator, asks, "What will the post-Katrina Bush government say to millions of Americans who ask: When will the USA end its tradition of neglecting the infrastructure needs of low income Americans - especially people of color?" Grassroots efforts from all over the country, directed in solidarity with the hardest-hit communities, offer to fill this void with hard work, building materials, food and services, bicycles, and hope.
For more info on Plan-B, see their website at http://planb.bikeproject.org. The shipping costs and flights for volunteer mechanics were covered by donations from The Benjamin Fiscella Fund, a fundraiser by Vincent Sterne and the Two Rivers Cider Co. of Sacramento, CA, and Pacific Rim Freight Forwarders.
by Stacey Cordeiro
Six volunteer mechanics from BNB - Alex Twombly (a BNB Bike Shop manager), Liat and Abby Hoffman, Ann Adelsberger, David Gilbert, and Chris Bull (of Circle-A Cycles, Providence) - flew down to New Orleans in time to spend a week rebuilding the bikes sent from Boston. Also meeting the trailer was Tracy, a graduate of BNB's Earn-A-Bike and Vocational Training programs, who arrived in October 2005 for relief assistance. With a group called the Hurricane Autonomous Workers Collective, Tracy (who prefers the gender-neutral pronoun "ze" instead of he or she) has been working with local groups to remove fallen trees, clean up debris, and gut flooded houses. Ze describes a shocking scene of toxic pollutants and debris, particularly in the Lower 9th Ward, where ze has been ripping contaminated drywall and furniture out of houses. They have plenty of respirators, gloves, and jumpsuits to protect themselves from the pollutants. But, Tracy says, "you can't protect against everything when just walking down the street is poisonous."
By now, the failure of the Federal, State, and local governments to protect New Orleans residents from this disaster or to provide them aid in its wake is well documented. But the real news, and hope, in New Orleans is in the stories of local residents organizing community-based relief efforts to do for themselves what the government didn't. In the heavily flooded Treme neighborhood of the 7th Ward, a community organizer named Mama Dee has turned her home into a relief center for the community. A sign out front reads: "Rescue, Return, Restore." Manuel Mercator, a volunteer at Mama Dee's House, spent the days following the hurricane in a small boat rescuing his neighbors from rooftops. At Mama Dee's, they are still rescuing people, and Manuel says: "it's more than just saving a life, it's saving people's spirit, thoughts, and sanity."
Plan B had already donated 20 bikes for distribution through Mama Dee's house, as well as tools to set up a small shop there. They have established similar relationships with churches and community organizations, such as Emergency Communities in St. Bernard Parish, to distribute bikes to people that need them, and to provide tools and training in bike repair and maintenance. Bicycle organizations from around the country are helping; Positive Spin in Morgantown WV was the first to ship bikes, followed by Working Bikes in Chicago, Recycle-A-Bike in Providence, and Free Ride in Pittsburgh. At first, explains John Gerken, a volunteer at Plan B, they just sold the bikes on a sliding scale starting at $15, in the weeks following the hurricane when people were desparate and simply had no other transportation. This shipment from BNB, he says, will be distributed through community organizations such as Mama Dee's, and Plan B continues to mobilize volunteer aid workers with bikes on loan.
Before the hurricane, Plan B had just completed one year of a new Earn-A-Bike program (modeled in part after BNB) in addition to their bike repair program at the New Orleans Charter Middle School. The school was flooded; tools and 150 bikes they had on site were destroyed. John hopes they will start those programs up again soon, but the youth that participated were largely evacuated from the city - most have not returned. He estimates that in the 8th ward, a working class African American neighborhood where many of the youth participants lived, only 20% of residents have returned, in stark contrast to the wealthier French Quarter and Baywater areas which are largely back to normal.
Community relief organizations currently operating in New Orleans include the Common Ground Collective, Bayou Liberty Relief, and the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Project (PHRF). While these organizations are still working to salvage and restore buildings at the same time as organizing residents to fight for better services and assistance, the Red Cross cut back its food distribution centers months ago and FEMA trailers sit in lots unused. Ingrid Chapman, a carpenter from California volunteering with PHRF, writes: "They need support but the collective will is there ... I know the movement here can strengthen the movement everywhere."
Carl Kurz, BNB's founder and shipping coordinator, asks, "What will the post-Katrina Bush government say to millions of Americans who ask: When will the USA end its tradition of neglecting the infrastructure needs of low income Americans - especially people of color?" Grassroots efforts from all over the country, directed in solidarity with the hardest-hit communities, offer to fill this void with hard work, building materials, food and services, bicycles, and hope.
For more info on Plan-B, see their website at http://planb.bikeproject.org. The shipping costs and flights for volunteer mechanics were covered by donations from The Benjamin Fiscella Fund, a fundraiser by Vincent Sterne and the Two Rivers Cider Co. of Sacramento, CA, and Pacific Rim Freight Forwarders.
by Stacey Cordeiro