REDESIGNMENT | #BWWM | RomePi™

4 ɤ The Move (BWWM)

-POST-KATRINA-

PAST

In 2007, at the ripe old age of eighteen, Honor's parents finally agreed to allow their daughter to work with a volunteer organization.

For the entire summer, she was able to lend a helping hand as the group built houses during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Even though it had been a full two years since New Orleans suffered from one of the worst natural disasters in the twenty-first century, the city had yet to fully recover from the inconceivable amount of death, damage, and displacement that had been unleashed on its inhabitants.

Images of people struggling to survive immediately after the 2005 storm deeply affected the sixteen-year-old when she first witnessed it on the news as a high school student.

Once the government cleared the way for organizations to go in and help the residents, numerous outside companies gathered volunteers and headed over to New Orleans. Honor petitioned her parents to join one of those volunteer groups. Initially, they refused to allow their daughter to become a part of the charitable movements aimed at assisting with the clean-up and rebuilding efforts of the city.

Honor never forgot about the devastation despite witnessing what her neighbors to the east had experienced.

Heartbroken and a little confused about how she had been prevented from lending a hand; Honor finally accepted an opportunity to work over the summer with any of the local teams to create as many beautiful homes as possible at the newly cleared and decontaminated state-approved sites.

The actions of the Save Our Homes Initiative fostered in Honor a desire to learn the most creative ways in which to beautify a space and add balance to people's lives. She recalled how her parents always insisted that home should be a place to rest.

"If you desire to become successful, you must find the right balance between an aggressive pursuit of your financial goals and perfect rest. Victory is somewhere in the middle of the two. You must seek it out to find and identify your limits to achieve greatness."

Because her father was an incredibly successful businessman and an upstanding philanthropist in the DFW Metroplex, he gained the undying loyalty of other professionals and many others who found themselves in his presence. His numerous philosophical pursuits changed people's lives, and his daughter, believing him to be all things excellent in a messed up world, hung on the man's every word.

The wisdom he imparted to others transformed those who listened and implemented his instructions.

When she witnessed the many issues that still lingered in New Orleans a few years after the storm, Honor committed herself to becoming a part of the city's solutions. She therefore arrived encouraged by the lessons that her parents taught. Though she hadn't chosen the same career path as her folks, she utilized what she had learned from them to prepare herself to tackle any issues that surfaced in her world.

Her motivation to pursue a career as an interior designer came to her during the time she spent working with a team to rebuild homes that were structurally more sound while also beautifying the aesthetic curb appeal of each community.

She felt blessed to help people rebuild their dreams after witnessing the sheer number of decimated structures. Nothing in the world impacted her being as much as the screaming and tears of joy expressed by individuals who received the keys to their new homes. Because many of them had not too long ago lost everything, the sight of their happiness was payment enough for her volunteered labor.

It was during that time that she met a young local who was tasked with the job of assisting the out-of-towners. Upon her return to New Orleans after college and her time with Mrs. Nakagawa, Gillian was the guide who would one day become her best friend as well as her champion.