While in New Orleans for a Public Radio News Directors conference in July, WRTI’s Windsor Johnston spent three days volunteering in the city’s Lakeview neighborhood, located near the 17th Street Canal Levee that was breached following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Although Lakeview is considered to be one of the “most built-up” areas of New Orleans, Johnston said, the neighborhood still has no operating grocery store or pharmacy, and only about 30 percent of its estimated 11,000 residents have returned in the two years since the storm.

“While walking around, I discovered markings and numbers on the homes,” Johnston recalled. “I found out that they were the dates the homes were searched and also the numbers of the people found dead.

“While chopping, shoveling, raking and digging, I found things that absolutely broke my heart,” she added, such as toys, stuffed animals, and in one home, a silver knife inscribed with the words “Happy 50th Anniversary.”

Johnston was part of a volunteer group organized by the Beacon of Hope Resource Center, a grass-roots organization helping to rebuild New Orleans’ devastated neighborhoods.

“Before I left, I asked Liz, the founder, how she would describe their efforts in the last two years,” Johnston said. “She told me, ‘It’s been like putting a million-piece puzzle back together, and each volunteer is a piece of it.’”