Humanitarian Aid |
Born with the music“ I had tears in my eyes”
| Calvin Johnson Chad Cramer |
Calvin Johnson comes from a family of New Orleans musicians. At age seven, one of his uncles gave him a saxophone. He played it on stage at the famous Tipitina nightclub at the age of 12.
It was registration week at the University of New Orleans when Katrina hit. Johnson had not yet attended classes, but had moved half his stuff into his new dorm room, leaving the other half in his parent’ s house. The storm flooded their home with over 12 feet of water, destroying everything— including his saxophone. His dorm was not flooded but looted.“ They broke into everything and took what they could,” he recalls.
Doubly homeless, Johnson became a nomad, traveling across the country from place to place. When he returned home, he found it nearly impossible to find affordable housing.
Then he heard about Habitat for Humanity, a charity that was building homes in New Orleans East in a development called“ Musicians Village.” The sixblock Village, now complete and home to 80-some local performers and their families— including Johnson— was largely funded by a $ 4 million gift from the Qatar Katrina Fund.
Chad Cramer knew he would return to Louisiana to go back to school. He just didn’ t know Hurricane Katrina would hit the day he was supposed to start his first day at Tulane University.
Just three days later, Cramer was back in New Orleans. His home had been flooded, but he went right to work cleaning up and helping others.“ We met everyone from every demographic you can think of and heard their stories … it was really emotional,” he recalls.
When Tulane reopened, Cramer had no financial plan. Luckily the university had established the $ 10 million Qatar Tulane Scholars Fund. This provided scholarships to students hit by the hurricane— including Cramer, whose five years of architecture studies were covered.
“ To have someone come in and say,‘ We are going to pay for your education’ was just amazing,” he says.“ I remember when I got the letter saying that I had received the grant, I had tears in my eyes.”
Cramer was the first person in his family to graduate from college( and he did so with honors). He is now an urban designer with the City of New Orleans.
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