Dear Friend of Common Ground Relief,

In 2011 alone we coordinated over 2,000 short and long term volunteers. These individuals joined close to 35,000 volunteers from around the world who have aided us in providing services to the Greater New Orleans Community since our founding on September 5th 2005. Our volunteers provided food, water, clothing and tool lending in nine distribution centers in seven parishes across southern Louisiana. They have gutted around 3,000 houses, businesses, churches and schools in the New Orleans' Ninth Ward.

More recently our volunteers have completed the interior renovation of over 100 single family homes in addition to completing a wide range of additional construction-based tasks from house foundation repair to re-roofing homes for returning residents.

We continue to host skilled volunteers who focus on home rebuilding and wetlands restoration. We have partnered with numerous colleges from across the country, who have brought enthusiastic and knowledgeable volunteers to our center in the Lower 9th Ward to maintain our programs alongside our full-time paid coordinators.

In addition to our volunteer rebuilding program, we remain invested in training local residents who wish to work in home construction. We have expanded our New Home Construction and Home Elevation programs throughout Jefferson, Orlenas and St. Bernard parishes, and our contractor partner is hiring and traing more local residents. Several graduates of the Job Training Program have worked on the construction of new houses for returning residents within walking distance of Common Ground Relief's headquarters.

2011 also saw the creation of our fully equipped Custom Cabinetry and Millwork Shop! From this shop we can create custom wood moldings and build hardwood kitchen cabinetry and bathroom vanieties for homes being remodeled throughout the city. The millwork shop is able to replicate and install antique moldings and trim pieces in historic homes. In 2012 we aim to hire and train local youth to become skilled carpenters in our shop.

The Gulf Coast, still reeling from the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010, continues to lose a football field-size piece of valuable wetlands every 37 minutes. Our Wetlands Restoration Program works in a number of ways to combat the environmental degradation of our coastline.

• In our Wetlands Restoration Station we grow thousands of bottomland hardwood trees and tens of thousands of stems of marsh grasses which we plant with volunteer groups in areas from the north shore of Lake Pontchartain to the Bonnet Carre Spillway and Bayou Sauvage in the East of the city. Our planting sites are monitored and we have the ability to salt harden plant material as needed.

• We have partnered with Groundwork New Orleans to create the Green Team at the Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School for Science and Technology in the Lower Ninth Ward. The participating students are paid a weekly salary and help us coordinate plantings and rain garden installations. The participants will also lean plant nursery management and will act as mentors for other students. We also teach a wetland program at the KIPP Renaissance School in the Upper Ninth Ward.

• We are also providing volunteers for plantings with our partner the Restore the Earth Foundation as part of the Gulf Saver Bag Initiative in Plaquemines Parish. These plantings are conducted in partnership with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

Members of our 'Green Team' will also help with the supervision of the Garden of Eatin' Program at Martin Luther King Jr Charter School. The Program, now administered by faculty members, was grew out of our Meg Perry Healthy Soil Project in 2010. In addition to providing students with education about food security, it includes and expanded emphasis on wetlands plants and urban forest trees.

We are also participating in the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority's "Lot Next Door Program" and have provided and planted over 500 trees in the yards of residents throughout the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East in the past year. The Meg Perry Healthy Soil project also continues to build raised-bed flower and vegetable gardens and provide soil testing for newly returned residents.

In 2011 our Legal Clinic expanded to better server the needs our community. The clinic is now open five days a week, including two evenings per week and Saturdays. We employ a part-time paralegal and two part-time attorneys who work alongside law students from Loyola and Tulane Universities. To find details about the assistance we provide, and for all information on all our projects, please visit our website

We hold in our hearts a more generous and caring future and thank you for helping us through the long haul in rebuilding the Gulf region over the past 6 years.

Please consider supporting Common Ground Relief and our 2012 programs. To keep up to date with our progress, please visit www.commongroundrelief.org, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

To make an online donation, please click here.

All tax deductible checks can be sent to Common Ground Relief, 1800 Deslonde Street, New Orleans, LA, 70117.

Wishing you and the world a kinder and better future