Interview with Mack McClendon of the Lower 9th Ward Village Community Center

I was in New Orleans from March 8 - 15, 2008. I was one of many thousands of volunteers in the city helping with the effort to rebuild the Lower 9th Ward. I had wanted to do something active ever since Hurricane Katrina and finally had the opportunity. It was an amazing trip and truly an experience that has changed my life. I cannot stop thinking about what needs to be done, the shocking amount of destruction I saw there, and the wonderful people I met. One of the people that had the biggest impact was Mack McClendon, a resident of the Lower 9th Ward. He is the visionary and life force behind the Village at the Lower 9th Ward. The Village was an abandoned building that looks like an airplane hangar. Mack, with the help of Dar Kulisek, the site manager, and thousands of volunteers, is rebuilding it to become a community center. The work began in November of 2007 and there's slow but steady progress every week. When Mack greeted our group the first morning we came to the work site, he told us the story of his transformation from an angry and depressed man who lost everything in Katrina to the person he is today - a community organizer who feels like every day is Christmas. It was quite a story, one I knew I had to record for others to hear. Here are pictures of Mack and Dar, and our group listening to Mack's story the first morning we were there. I asked Mack if he would sit down with me toward the end of the week for an interview and of course he said yes. This is the podcast of that interview, done on March 13, 2008, sitting in Mack's "office" outside the Village.