Lastly, the KFD Teen Officers in New Orleans talked with DNC Member Jason Rae of Wisconsin. Jason, who at age 19 is the youngest member of the Democratic National Committee, congratulated the KFD teens on their participation at the General Session.
Clockwise from top left: DNC Chair Governor Howard Dean; DNC Voting Rights Institute Director Donna Brazile; KFD on C-Span TV; Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), & DNC Vice Chair Linda Chavez-Thompson.
Right: Louisiana Chapter Officers welcome one of the KFD Co-Founders to the Bayou State.
Louisiana native Ms. Brazile, who headed the Gore-Lieberman '2000 campaign, urged the teens to run for office themselves one day -- even for President!
Left: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin also thanked the teens for their relief efforts.
Senator Landrieu sent thanks to KFD members nationwide for their relief volunteer efforts.
A year ago, the city of New Orleans was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Our KFD Louisiana Chapter Co-Leaders survived the hurricane by evacuating New Orleans with their families.
A.B.'s family evacuated to Florida for two months. J.C.'s family stayed for five months in Baton Rouge. By last January, both teens and their families had moved back to New Orleans,determined to rebuild the city. The KFD teen leaders took part in clean-up activities organized by churches and local civic groups.
The teens' efforts to rebuild New Orleans were honored when they and a handful of other Kids for Democracy teens were invited to help Governor Howard Dean open the Democratic National Committee Meeting in New Orleans (scroll down for that report).
Leading the Pledge of Allegiance at the DNC's '06 Spring Meeting with DNC Chairman Governor Howard Dean
"I think that we in New Orleans are rebuilding our city, but it's a slow process.
Sometimes, when I look around the city, I feel like I'm not back home in a sense. I think it's especially hard for us teens because there aren't many places to go like before. Also, only half of my friends have been able to return to the city. I keep up with friends who are still living away by writing emails to them and talking to them over the phone. Some of them have been able to come to visit every so often, so that's been nice.
I know that people are working hard together to rebuild our city and that it will be great again for me and future generations.
I'm already proud of what I see. I run on the cross country team at my school, and when we run, I see a very beautiful view of my city. People are coming back. They're rebuilding their homes. They're staying. It's not going to be an abandoned city.
In school, we talked a lot last year about surviving the hurricane. We don't really talk so much about it in our classes anymore. But it's certainly not a memory I want to ever forget. I want to hang onto the memory for the rest of my life. It was an important experience, and it's given me a definite goal. I know that life can be short, and I want to live as full of a life as I can."
-- A.B., age 15, New Orleans
KFD Teens Invited to DNC Meeting!
Clockwise from top left: DNC Vice Chair Lottie Shackelford; Senator Landrieu & Ms. Shackelford; RainbowPUSH Coalition Director Jesse Jackson; New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin; DNC Vice Chair Congressman Mike Honda (D-CA).
Our KFD Louisiana Chapter Co-Leaders get political pointers from Louisiana native and DNC Voting Rights Director Donna Brazille.
For this one-year anniversary of the hurricane, we asked our Chapter Co-Leaders to
share their thoughts . . .
Hurricane Katrina Anniversary:
Teen Views
Summer ended two weeks ago, and now my old school is opened again. I'm a senior this year. I'm so glad that I will get to graduate from my own school. A lot of the seniors last year didn't get to do that.
We didn't have a school yearbook last year, but we will this year. I'm going to work on the Yearbook Club, the Computer Science club, and play baseball.
A lot of us at school still talk about the hurricane. But now we ask questions like, 'Did you see that documentary last night on T.V.?' It's really interesting to see how our own personal experience is being told to the rest of the world.
For college, I think I might like to stay in Louisiana and help New Orleans rebuild. I just know that in the next five to six years, everybody is going to want to come back."
-- J.C., age 17, New Orleans
-- A.B., age 17, New Orleans
"This Saturday, my family is moving into a new apartment complex. It will be the third place we've lived in since the hurricane. Our own house was flooded with six feet of water, so we had to gut it out and fix the foundation. Next March, the repairs will be done, and we can finally move back in. I'm looking foward to it.
When my family first returned to New Orleans after the hurricane, my school and two others had combined. All of us went to the school that was upland and hadn't flooded. Every kid had a story to tell, and we'd asked each other, 'How did you survive? Where did you go? How did you fit in, in those other places?'
