By Anonymous AmeriCorps

The Saints aren’t the only ones who are lifting the spirits of New Orleanians this year. Among the throngs of fans in the Who Dat Nation, over one thousand Americorps are currently committing a year of service to the betterment of the Crescent City. This is one of their stories.

Six months ago I was packing my car with everything I owned and heading to a place I had never been before.

Not far from my future home, a group of men were training together to go to a place they had never been before.

Now I may not wear a jersey with a name like Brees, Shockey, Colston or Fujita on it, but I can’t help but find parallels between my AmeriCorps and New Orleans experience and the inspiration and lessons we’ve learned this season from our New Orleans Saints (go ahead and roll your eyes, but this is my blog entry and its going to be cheesy so you might as well grab some crackers and keep reading).

When I chose to come to New Orleans as an AmeriCorps all I wanted to do was help and be a rebuilding superhero. While I may not be the strongest or the brightest (just ask my ex), I believe that I have a heart for service and coupled with my willingness to get some dirt under my fingernails, I set out full of optimism and hope that I would be able to be the change I wanted to see in the world. Man, was I about to get the naivete smacked out of me…in a good way.

Once I started working for Rebuilding Together New Orleans, I learned a quick lesson. Helping the city recover is a big job. A REALLY big job. With economic factors, infrastructure concerns and the sheer enormity of need, the recovery effort is not something someone with a liberal arts degree, a pocket full of dreams and a hammer can comprehend, much less achieve, alone.

Like the Saints though (warning: cliche teamwork reference and questionable association ahead), I’ve seen how success is possible and obstacles are overcome when all those involved work together. Drew Brees’s arm, Sean Peyton’s vision and Reggie Bush’s agility, along with the rest of the team, are what made the Saints successful this season. No game is ever won by a single player and no large-scale effort, like the one we face here in New Orleans, is possible without a well orchestrated collaboration of talent (from Construction Managers, House Captains and the studs who work in Deconstruction, to the Intake Department, Community Outreach Officers and the Grants and Development team), time (thank you volunteers!) and treasure (give us money). There’s a reason why we’re called Rebuilding TOGETHER New Orleans.

I’m part of a generation that believes we can do anything. We set lofty goals, dream big and fall hard. I can’t imagine what a 40 year dry spell and being called the “Aints” was like, but I did spend a few months frustrated, feeling ineffective and wondering what more I could be doing to finally feel like I was “winning”. It took looking at the bigger picture and creating realistic expectations of the process, our progress and my idealistic world-view to fully understand how much of an impact I could actually have here in New Orleans. I’m not a one-man army, but I sure as heck am going to join others in being an army of change.

This year I may not be going to the Super Bowl (I’m working on my routes for next season), but I feel like I, along with all the great folks at RTNO, have accomplished some pretty big feats. Since Katrina we’ve rebuilt 226 homes and I’ve had the privilege to sit with a homeowner who lost everything and witness firsthand the strength of the human spirit. We’ve helped over 450 people return to the city and I’ve installed weatherization, tried my hand at deconstruction and built a fence. Most importantly though, over the past six months, I learned that I really can be a superhero for New Orleans, just not in the way I originally thought. I may not be rebuilding homes with Superman’s speed (interesting fact: Brandon Routh who played Superman in the latest installment of the series, worked with RTNO on a build) or inspiring a nation by making touchdowns, but I’m doing what I can and that’s what matters.

I hope you will do what you can too.