A few weeks ago, a former coach and current friend (and oddly enough quasi-collegue of mine), Todd Hardy, filled me in on an initiative going on in Kenosha. Considering “The Recovery Project” features so many passions of mine (my alma mater-Tremper HS, music, New Orleans), I feel inclined to let you all know of their work and what you can do to help.

The Recovery Project is a partnership between school staff and students in Wisconsin and New Orleans, Louisiana. It began in October of 2006 between Tremper High School in Kenosha, WI and John McDonogh High School in New Orleans LA, and is growing as more schools in both areas join in!

The idea of the partnership is to share academic and life lessons with staff and students from different regions of the United States, as well as, creating, unique ideas and ventures to help the New Orleans Schools move forward after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

It’s hard to not feel an emotional attachment to this initiative. Everyone knows the devestation that Katrina brought to New Orleans (sidenote: Beat the Bears this weekend, New Orleans!!) and all of their recovery efforts on a broad-scale, but it’s always interesting to see exactly what “recovery” means.

John McDonough HS was still missing a lot of things in October of 2006, nearly a year after Katrina hit. For example:

Tremper has taken JMHS’s plight into their own hands. They’ve gotten teachers to donate “teaching books” to help JMHS’s teachers to improve their professional skills; they’ve held a “school supply” drive to help get JMHS materials they need; they’ve held a book drive to help replenish their library. And they now are hosting a music instrument drive to help JMHS’s band replenish their stock. With Mardi Gras coming up, they have been invited to march in numerous parades, but they only have 30 instruments for 80 people in the band.

So, if you need a local connection to New Orleans and the post-Katrina efforts, here’s one for you. If you want to help, let me know–I can get you in touch with the right people.

At bare minimum, just keep your eye on their website, http://www.trempergirlssoccer.com/recoverypremise.html. It’s nice to see some good going on in the world.