Camp Hope

Camp Hope (see below for Fall 2009 update), is a volunteer base camp located in a former school in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. Camp Hope has welcomed people from all over the United States and all over the world who have come to participate in the massive recovery efforts of St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Camp Hope provides affordable housing and meals for groups and individuals who have come to serve St Bernard parish and the city of New Orleans. Breakfast and dinner are served throughout the work week, as well as the option to make sack lunches to take on volunteer work sites. The facilities include a large dining area, bathrooms, showers, laundry facilities, meeting rooms, and bunk rooms with enough space to sleep over 300 individuals.

Camp Hope opened on June 1, 2006, in the former "W. Smith Junior Elementary School" in Violet, Louisiana due to the closure of Camp Premiere, a FEMA-sponsored base camp established to provide basic life support for emergency response activities. Col. David Dysart (USMCR), the Director of The St. Bernard Parish Office of Recovery, formed alliances with multiple Non-Profit Organizations, volunteer groups and the St. Bernard School Board to relocate the camp and ensure the continued support necessary for the critical volunteer efforts to continue. The opening was facilitated by several AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps teams and overseen by St. Bernard Parish employee Tom Pfalzer.

The mission of Camp Hope then, in addition to providing low-cost volunteer housing, was to facilitate volunteer relief efforts in St. Bernard Parish and in the New Orleans area. This effort included managing and participating in the removal of health and safety hazards internal to residential properties throughout St. Bernard Parish (gutting houses i.e. removing rotting furniture, drywall, kitchen appliances that held biohazards as well as more ordinary hazards such as mercury switches used in thermostats and household chemicals) and facilitate repatriation by displaced residents as a cost effective alternative to unnecessary demolition, with the assistance of the local, state, federal, NCCC, and other volunteer and non-governmental agencies. At the end of the debris removal process, volunteers in St. Bernard had gutted over 2,500 homes in St. Bernard Parish at no cost to their owners.

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