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Call it volunteer vacations, travel philanthropy, or voluntourism, but the idea of combining leisure travel with volunteering your time in the local com•munities you visit is taking off. Surveys by online travel companies Travelocity and Cheap Tickets show increasing interest in voluntourism; market researcher Euromonitor International projected that it will be one of the fastest-growing travel segments for the next three to four years. Though the trend has spawned several organizations and programs dedicated to planning voluntourism getaways for travelers, you can tap into your own resources—friends, coworkers, your church—to find out about national and international organizations and institutions, that need your help. However you plan it, the key to effective voluntourism is finding the right balance between service and play. You can set aside a few hours of each day for your volunteer activity, then enjoy all the rest of what your destination has to offer. UPTOWN traveled to New Orleans, Jamaica, and Haiti to explore the idea of blending purpose with play, and found that giving back to these communities is a fantastic way to get more out of a trip.
NEW ORLEANS
It’s by far my favorite domestic destination, but I hadn’t visited New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, and I didn’t know what to expect. What I discovered is a community daunted but determined to recover. Family roots run deep here, so for many, pulling up stakes just isn’t an option. And with a culture as unique and richly favored as the Crescent City’s, it’s easy to see why folks are staying, and being joined by those who come down to help in the rebuilding effort.
One organization on the receiving end of all that altruism is New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity (habitat-nola.org). Its Web site lets you register in advance to select the days and projects you’d like to volunteer for—the only requirement is that you give at least one full day of service. Once you show up to a place like Musicians’ Village, however, you may be inspired to do more. Brightened by colorful signs amid all the construction, this new community of 40 homes for displaced musicians and non musicians alike in the Upper 9th Ward is the brainchild of native sons Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. Volun•teers come here from around the world to help build houses for people like 26-year-old jazz trumpeter Shamarr Allen, whose home in the Lower 9th Ward was demolished by the levee breach, destroying nearly $40,000 of instruments and production equipment. Allen is eager to put the finishing touches on his new home, which will be just across the way from what he says will be his “second home”—the new Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, sure to be the neighborhood centerpiece. New Orleans has several other places to find great music, however. Festivals large and small are back, including the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (nojazzfest.com), arguably one of the best music festivals in the country. Now located in Louis Armstrong Park, Congo Square, a historic gathering place where enslaved Africans spent their free Sundays steeped in drumming, song, and dance, is host to the new Congo Square Rhythms Music Festival (jazzandheritage.org/congosquare). Almost any day of the week, you can catch a Marsalis, Neville, or other jazz notable at Snug Harbor (626 Frenchmen St., 504.949.0696, snugjazz.com) in Faubourg Marigny, a favorite neighborhood for locals but little known to most tourists, just next to the French Quarter. There’s also plenty of opportunity to support the black business owners who have returned to bolster New Orleans’s economy. For a real “home away from home”—that is, if your home is a Greek Revival manor—settle in at the Hubbard Mansion Bed & Breakfast (3535 St. Charles Ave., 504.897.3535, hubbardmansion.com). Art lovers will want to check out La Belle Galerie (309 Chartres St., 504.529.3080, labellegallery.com) and Royal Heritage Gallery (832 Royal St., 504.596.2003, akinlana.net), both in the Quarter. And you can’t leave NOLA without visiting the Queen of Creole Cuisine, Leah Chase, at the famed Dooky Chase’s Restaurant (2301 Orleans St., 504.821.0535). Her shrimp Clemenceau will have you coming back for more. —Carla E. Wills (For more, please order the Winter 2007 "Philanthropy" Issue of UPTOWN magazine)
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