I spent four days volunteering at ARNO (Animal Rescue of New Orleans) before the UCC group arrived, and, as usual, they are amazingly busy. The whole operation is run by volunteers, and the ones I worked with are amazingly committed to their cause.

It's incredibly tiring work and the time just seems to fly by -- there's always another dog to walk, or cages to clean or dishes and kitty litter pans to wash. I'd start at 7:30 in the morning and when I next looked at my watch it'd would be after 5 at night.It was tough work, but every action you take feels like you doing something tangible to help the life of one of the animals.

I work side-by-side with one of their full-time regular volunteers, Jeff, and after four days, we were working together with efficiency and had built up a camaraderie that usually takes months to create. I find this happens anytime I volunteer -- people just naturally bond as they work.

The same has been true with the rest of the UCC group, now that they've arrived. The four others that I'm working on are amazingly hard working and within minutes we were joking with each other and working together as a natural team. I've been wholly impressed with how John, John, Dave and Roy have jumped into some amazingly technical and large-scale work rebuilding the foundation of the house, and myself have just been sticking with simpler tasks like running wires and cutting boards for the subfloor.

Today we all were able to share in a great event -- we were able to watch as the 210th famliy served by the St Bernard Project came home. They had a small ribbon cutting ceremony and we were able to walk through the house just before the family moved their furniture in. I found it very moving as it brought to life the changes were are bringing to the area.

It has been amazing to me to see the differences in the neighborhood in the short year since we were last here -- there are many, many more volunteers helping St Bernard Project, businesses are starting to come back, many of the derelict houses have been removed by the parish, and more and more houses are appearing, even in the Lower 9th Ward.

The scope of the problem is still humbling, but it is exciting to see change coming to the area, bit by bit. I am attaching a picture of our team with Liz McCartney, one of the founders of St Bernard Project and the winner of the 2008 CNN Hero of the Year Award.

-Jim Arnow