Geux Gulf Fellows, Geux Saints!

by: Jeremy Burton

Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 08:58:08 AM EST

Its Sunday morning and I’m on my way down to South Carolina, where I’ll hopefully be watching the Super Bowl tonight at a retreat together with the Gulf Coast Fellows for Community Transformation (GCFCT); a fellowship in support of 17 of the most amazing community organizers from across 4 states (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi & Alabama), working to help their communities create a just and equitable recovery from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. GCFCT is collaboration between JFSJ, the 21st Century Foundation and the Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal, who joined forces two years ago to share our expertise and a long-term vision for the recovery.

The truth is that six months ago, when we scheduled the retreat, taking the fellows away for respite (so desperately needed by these tireless leaders) and skills building this week, we – the staff on the ground and at the sponsoring foundations – maybe lacked the imagination to foresee this Super Bowl Sunday and the monumental excitement being felt in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast today. But, despite the odds and a less than stellar track record over the last 4 decades, the Saints today are a living embodiment of the hopes, dreams and aspirations of a community that has been dealt, and dealt itself at times, a pretty bad hand over the past decades (the disaster wasn’t Katrina, it was the decades of failed leadership, lack of imagination, and poor planning that created the conditions for the storm to leave behind such destruction).

What the Saints have done this season, and what the 17 fellows do every day on the ground, is encourage and empower the people of the Gulf Coast to imagine something bigger and better. These fellows, working with immigrants, low-income communities, youth, the formerly incarcerated; working

to create new solutions on issues of housing, environmental justice, human rights and economic opportunity – they invite their communities not only to hope and dream, but to take action and to take control of their destiny. I’m privileged to have the opportunity to lend support on behalf of the Jewish community to their efforts. I’m blessed to have a role in restoring the Jewish community’s commitment, in partnership with our colleagues in the African-American community (as represented by our foundation partners), to working for the full realization of civil and economic rights in the Deep South.

So, much as I love what I get to do every day, tonight will be one of the more fun nights of my job, hanging out and rooting for the Saints with these 17 amazing men and women and their families (though I as a keeper of a traditional kashrut may not be able to eat much of the awesome traditional spread we’re putting on). While the Saints have given hope to their home region, it’s these fellows who give me hope for their region’s future. It is they who are at the forefront of creating a better recovery for all the people of the Gulf, and for that they are the true Saints this year.