Mid to late February 2022

Care-A-Vanners

We had been mulling over the idea of volunteering during our travels. Most of the opportunities we had come across required a commitment of several months – a bit too long for us. We read an article in Escapees magazine about Care-A-Vanners, which is a Habitat for Humanity program for travelers like us.

The Care-A-Vanner builds require a shorter commitment, usually two weeks. Sounded good to us. We applied and signed up to work in Mandeville, Louisiana for the last two weeks of February.

The St. Tammany Parish (counties in Louisiana are called parishes) is its own 503C non-profit, as are other Habitat affiliates. All affiliates are under the umbrella of Habit for Humanity, but each operates independently.

This affiliate runs St. Tammany Restore, a thrift store that helps fund the building projects. They also serve as a mortgage lender, construction management company, and development and fundraising agency. Since 1981, St. Tammany West has built almost 300 homes in the parish.

Some people think that these houses are just handed over to low income individuals. Not true. The program is a hand-up, not a hand-out. Potential homeowners have to go through an application process, and then demonstrate that they can pay a mortgage and keep up with bills. They take classes to learn how to maintain their homes and be financially responsible. Then they have to partner in the process by contributing hundreds of sweat equity hours to their, or other homeowners’ builds.

It’s often a two to three year process, depending on the location. The mortgages are financed at zero interest, to help the homeowners get a hand-up.

During our assignment, we worked Tuesdays through Saturdays from 8:30 to 3:00. The Care-A-Vanners stayed at Fontainebleu State Park, which was an easy commute to our worksites.

We enjoyed meeting the other volunteers, who were from Oklahoma, Washington state, and New Jersey. Our project supervisors and affiliate team members were great. Everyone is very dedicated to the mission and the success of the new homeowners.

We flipped back and forth between several houses under construction in Covington and Abita Springs. Tasks included painting, installing cabinetry, applying siding and trim, framing, and moving building materials from site to site.

We met and worked with several of the potential homeowners who were working to achieve their sweat equity hours. Kaitlyn and Dylan are so excited that their home is nearing completion! It was such a pleasure to witness their commitment and enthusiasm.

It felt great to be helpful. At the end of the busiest workdays, we were tired. Some days, we were eager to plow ahead and do more, but the pace and direction of the work weren’t our call. John has so many years of experience; I think he felt he could have done more than was asked of him.

For me, it was interesting being the volunteer, instead of the volunteer manager.

Every day holds lessons to be learned, if you’re open to the teaching. I managed to operate a nail gun and electric mitre saw, and I only completely destroyed one T-25 bit while learning to use a screw gun. For our first Habitat experience, it was good and we will likely do this again further down the road.

All Work and No Play…

All of February is Mardi Gras season in Southern Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Everything is decorated in sparkly Mardi Gras colors. The celebrations extend far beyond downtown New Orleans.

The calendar of events for New Orleans and the North Shore of Lake Ponchartrain, showed more than 100 parades leading up to Fat Tuesday, March 1st. There were parades of boats, Jeeps, lawnmowers, and decorated floats, marching bands, dance schools, and cops on motorcycles.

There are even parades with dogs in costumes. The Krewe of Barkus is a popular one. All parades throw bead necklaces and trinkets to the crowds.

My understanding is that the “Throw me something, Mister!” requests for beads get a little risque at the night time parades in NOLA. However, at any daytime parade, everyone goes home with an embarrassment of bead riches – especially the kids.

The best part of all this is people watching. Everyone is encouraged to dress up for the affair.

We went to a boat parade and a few smaller parades in Slidell, avoiding the crush of crowds at the parades in downtown New Orleans.

On our days off, we went to the Farmer’s Market in Abita Springs and the Camellia City outdoor market in Slidell. We sampled some delicious Mediterranean food, picked up sweet strawberries and some very hot sauce.

We went into New Orleans on our last day in the area, hoping to ride the streetcar and tour the Garden District. However, traffic was heavy, roads were blocked off, and the historic St. Charles streetcars weren’t running because of parades.

We strolled through the French Market, Jackson Square, and then walked down Bourbon Street.

We stopped in the Beignet Café for a drink and some live jazz.

This is Oprah’s favorite spot for beignets. Beignets (pronounced ben-yays’) are freshly made hot donuts covered with powdered sugar that, when eaten, will leave anyone sitting to your right or left also dusted with sugar.

We caught glimpses of more parades coming through town. Like Philadelphia’s Mummers, locals work on floats and costumes year round. The big feathered costumes come out on Fat Tuesday.

We packed up and headed out just before Fat Tuesday, when things get really wild. We spent actual Mardi Gras at Lake Charles for our first night back on the road. Not quite as uptown as New Orleans, but we still managed to catch more beads at their Second Line Stroll parade. (And it was only a 10 minute parade!)

We had lunch at Luna, which was wonderful. And on our way back to our parked van, we saw the Jeep parade! More beads!

We had enough beads to have our own parade. Here’s my bike decked out with our bead bounty:

From Lake Charles, we will head toward San Antonio and continue our trek west.