By Susan Gedutis Lindsay
Matt Iorlano, Berkleemusic Customer Service Manager and Assistant Registrar, spent a 95-degree, sticky June week in New Orleans with a hammer, shovel, and brush in hand—and says it changed his life forever. He was part of a seven-person group of Berklee-sponsored employees who volunteered to help Habitat for Humanity build a Musician’s Village in New Orleans, a special development especially for musicians displaced by the devastating floods that followed Hurricane Katrina.
How bad is it in New Orleans now?
It’s really bad. I’m not going to sugar coat it. If you go to the French Quarter—the touristy part—everything seemed business as usual. But once you get into the suburbs, a lot of it looks like it just happened. All the water is gone. But the destruction…it’s going to take years and years. There’s definitely progress, but compared to the amount of work that needs to be done, it’s very little. People still live on their lots but their home is unlivable so they’re living in trailers in their front yards. Homes completely knocked down, blown out windows, cars and buses that are still flipped over. Schools that look like war zones.
Did you work with an organization?
We worked with Habitat for Humanity. It’s their work site—a new development of homes called the Musician's Village, sponsored by Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis. Each day, there were about 200-300 people on the site and so far maybe ten or fifteen homes have been completed. We got to work side by side with some of the families who will be moving into these homes, which was extremely rewarding. They were so grateful and so excited, very sweet people. Even the people at the hotel we stayed at thanked us for coming. That was the vibe the entire trip. If we were working on a house, people would drive by and honk their horns and wave to us. Some people would stop to say thank you. I wasn’t expecting that. If anything, I wanted to thank them for allowing us to come and thank Berklee for putting this together and having us down there.
I guess I didn’t know what to expect. I don’t have much experience working on homes. But I learned so much. I got my hands in everything, from painting, to hammering, sawing, sanding, insulation. The conditions were really hot, about 95 degrees with really high humidity, and it was wonderful. It was so inspiring that the heat was the least of your worries. If anything, the worst part of the day was if you had a break or didn’t have something to do for a few minutes. Because you say, “I could be doing something now…”
What was the typical day like?
It was five full days of work. We’d get to the jobsite around 7:30. Habitat every morning would have a welcome speech to go over the ground rules about how to work with tools, how to climb a ladder, and so on, because every day you might have a new group of people. There’d be churches, schools, families, and other volunteers from all over the country. People of all ages, races, backgrounds, religions, everyone working together and got along. There was not one single fight and there were no egos. It was surreal.
Then we’d split up into sections on different projects. Sometimes they would need two people to work in the office to do billing, or they might ask for 25 people to help paint a house, or 10 people to help with floorboarding another house. By 8:00, we’d get to work and we’d work until about 3:00, Monday through Friday. We’d go back to the hotel after, take a nap or work on our blogs. I did a blog every day so I could share this with people at work and my friends and family. Then at night, we’d all go exploring the parts of the city that are thriving – go listen to music, support the businesses.
Was there something special about doing the work for musicians?
It was fantastic! One of the most rewarding things was that a musician who had already moved into his house that Habitat built, played a concert for us on his porch. He’s a Brazilian musician that sings and plays acoustic guitar. He had us all over as a thank-you to all the volunteers that came out. He put out chopped up tree stumps as chairs, under a little makeshift canopy up to get some shade. I’m not making this up… He was taking requests and somebody asked him if he knew any blues music. He said, “Yes, I do but I can’t play the blues because I’m not sad right now. I’m very happy.” Then he went and played No Woman No Cry by Bob Marley. His name was Ricardo Crespo, from southern Brazil.
Overall, it was a life changing experience for you!
It definitely was. Aside from my wedding day, it was the greatest experience of my life.
Words can’t describe… I never felt so many emotions at one time, negative and positive. I was sad for these people. Seeing how much work still needs to be done is a little depressing, because it was almost two years ago. The way our media is, it was the hot thing for a few weeks, and then it’s forgotten about. But there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done there. Any way that I can make people aware… whether they go to the Habitat site to volunteer themselves or make a donation, I want to do that.
The positive was the beautiful city and the beautiful people there. The food is incredible, the culture…it’s a very open minded area. My favorite part is that people from all over the country volunteering, getting a van and driving across the country, all ages from early teens to people in their 60s and just working together to help out. That doesn’t make the papers. It’s the looting that makes the papers and the issues with FEMA.
But local media did give you some good press…
When we got back, the local CBS station did a story about us. One of the guys in my group, who works for the Bursar’s Office, wrote a rap about his experience down there and I played some drums and helped him arrange it. They interviewed us and videotaped footage of us playing his tune, then aired it on a pre-fireworks July 4th special called “The American Spirit.”
Does it make you feel a little patriotic to have done this?
I was really proud to be associated with people like that. There’s enough negative media going on, where sometimes America gets a bad rap with the war and lots of political issues. But stuff like this needs to get more press because there are amazing things that people in this country are willing to do for each other.
And you’re one of those amazing people now!
I don’t know about that… I’m very grateful to Berklee for having supporting us to do that. Berklee hooked us up! I was paid salary while I was there, as if I was going to work. They gave us a per diem for meals, and paid for our hotel and travel. I’m not just saying this… I always thought that my job at Berkleemusic was the greatest job I’ve ever had. After this opportunity… if it could get any better, I don’t know how. This was unbelievable.
Visit the Berklee group’s blog berkleeonthebayou.wordpress.com.
Read Matt’s personal blog and see photos and videos, at http://miorlano.blogspot.com/.
Interview 
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