BATON ROUGE ? LSU may have made big strides on the practice field Friday as they attempt to beat Notre Dame in the Allstate Sugar Bowl next week. However, the biggest impact many of the LSU football players made on Friday came miles from a football field.
Over 35 members of the Tiger football team used a portion of their free time on Friday to replace football helmets with hard hats as LSU volunteered at Musician’s Village in the Ninth Ward. The Musician’s Village is an effort inspired by Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis, both New Orleans natives, to revitalize one of the areas hardest hit by the Hurricane Katrina.
To date, with the efforts from the Habitat for Humanity, the Musician’s Village has 34 newly constructed homes completed with another 58 under construction. There are currently 12 families living in the area designated as Musician’s Village with more on the way as another 205 homes are going to be built in 2007.
“We are not just building homes here, but we are trying to build a community,” one of the volunteers working with the Habitat for Humanity said. “We want neighbors to know each other and take ownership of what’s taking place down here.”
One of the keys is that new home owners must put in 350 hours of “sweat equity” on their new house. There is no monetary down payment required to becoming an owner of one of the newly constructed homes in Musician’s Village. Home owners in Musician’s Village also receive an interest free loan for the life of the mortgage, which usually spans 20 years.
The rebuilding efforts impressed one Tiger in particular. New Orleans native Ryan Willis came away with a greater appreciation for what is taking place in his hometown.
“It was good to come out here and help the community since I am from New Orleans,” Willis said. “You just try to give back. You see all these people out here helping. It’s a good thing for the community, and I am glad everyone from the team came to help. It looks like all of the team was enjoying it. We wish we could have stayed longer. Holy Cross, where I went to high school, is only five minutes from here. I am familiar with this whole area, but this was the first time that I have been to the Musicians’ Village. It is a pretty neat thing to see what is taking place.”
In addition to their spending a couple hours shoveling and moving dirt, the Tigers also seemed to provide a sense of relief and a diversion to the neighbors as well as the hundreds of volunteers in the area. Members of the team took pictures, signed autographs and simply talked to those people working in the area.
“I am truly privileged just to come out here and help the community because they need a lot of help,” LSU running back Jacob Hester said. “I am glad that we could lend a hand just for just the short amount of time that we were here. I wish we were here longer, but it is still a good thing. Hopefully, we can get to come back here and help them again.”