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From the very minute they stepped on the bus at the airport on Thursday, March 22, they knew something was still very wrong in New Orleans.

Members of the New England Revolution had trained in the Big Easy during the 2004 preseason, and had seen the city at the height of its glory. But in March 2007, it was an entirely different scene.

Hurricane Katrina, one of the most costly natural disasters in U.S. history both in terms of dollars and lives, had ravaged the city in late August 2005. The images of a city in crisis have been seared into the memories of the nation, including the members of the Revolution.

Although the area around the airport wasn’t as badly damaged as other parts of the city, the team still saw the remnants of the devastation 19 months after the hurricane hit as they drove to their hotel. Houses still stood unoccupied, the damage inflicted by vicious winds and rains – and floods – still visible to everyone who drove on the highway toward downtown.

Even the downtown area, one of the most vibrant and colorful metropolitan areas in the nation, still bore the scars of the storm. Water lines left by the flooding very evident as they drove by, businesses closed, windows boarded up and holes in roofs and walls staring passers by in the face. Windows scattered many floors up in the city’s high-rise office buildings were still blown out and open to the elements.

On the drive to training at Tad Gormley Stadium each morning, the team was hit with even more images of the destruction from the storm. Water lines on homes were higher than those downtown. For every one house or business that had been restored and now stands occupied, three or four more remain abandoned and blockaded. The stadium itself was under eight feet of water at the height of the post-storm flooding.

It was hard to ignore the threads of the dark shroud that clung over the city. So many homes and businesses still displayed the markings of the search and rescue squads that scoured the city for the sick and injured and deceased. The spray-painted Xs on the fronts of buildings with cryptic codes and numbers were evident all over, both downtown and on the city’s outskirts.

But of all the damage in New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish was among the hardest hit areas of the region. Because of its location in relation to the levees that were compromised by the rushing flood waters, the entire parish was underwater, anywhere from six to 20 feet of toxic water filling the area.

During the first few days of the trip, Revs players continually asked if they were going to do anything to help out – even just a little – while they were in New Orleans.

Before the team left Foxborough, team officials worked with the front office of the New Orleans Shell Shockers – their hosts in the Crescent City – to find a project where the team could send members for a few hours to lend a hand. The original plan was to have three or four players and the staff volunteer for an hour or two in the afternoon after training. When word started making its way around the team that there was an opportunity to make a difference, it became clear that plans were going to have to change.

The announcement was made after Saturday’s training session. Mike Burns, the team’s director of soccer, stood up and asked for a show of hands of how many people were interested in helping rebuild some homes for a couple of hours on Tuesday – the day before the game against the Shell Shockers. What happened next shocked nearly everyone. First the coaches’ hands went up, and then the rest of the staff’s hands. And before anyone knew it, nearly every single person on the bus had his hand up in the air. The original goodwill project had turned into a full-blown team effort.

On Tuesday, March 27, almost every member of the Revs’ travel party – save for those still recovering from a flu virus making its way through the team – visited the Chalmette area of St. Bernard Parish, and with the help of the St. Bernard Project, helped two families try to regain normalcy in their lives.

The drive to the work sites was grim still 19 months later. The team’s bus crossed a canal into the infamous Lower Ninth Ward, where the nation’s media continually flashed images of devastating flooding, where people reached at news helicopters for help from rooftops and out upper floor windows, where they waded through waist- to neck-deep water (if not higher) in search of any help that could be found.

The spray-painted markings on the fronts of homes told the group all they needed to know about the area. At the top were the dates the homes were inspected; many in this region were mid-to-late September. "TFW" dotted nearly every house, warning others of the toxic flood waters in the home. And the number at the very bottom – and in this area there were actual numbers instead of zeros – stood for the number of dead bodies found in the home or building.

The bus drove through the devastated Lower Ninth Ward and into St. Bernard Parish and the Chalmette area. Once busy strip malls and businesses were boarded up on main roads, their parking lots turned into guarded FEMA trailer home parks. The area of the parish the team was going to be working was closest to the Mississippi River. Oddly, although it was closest to the river, it was the highest part of the parish and suffered the least amount of flooding, but that didn’t save the neighborhoods from near complete destruction.

Zack Rosenburg, a criminal defense attorney originally from Belmont, Mass., and Liz McCartney, a Boston College graduate, started the non-profit St. Bernard Project one year ago with little more than an ambitious goal of rebuilding homes and lives in St. Bernard Parish. After gaining the support and backing of the United Way – a pledge to help fund the rebuilding effort for 20 homes at $2,500 each – Rosenburg and McCartney got to work, using volunteers and donations to help residents of St. Bernard Parish regain their lives.

Now, one year later, 30 homes have been completed with 19 more underway. Every dollar donated to the organization goes directly to the purchase of building supplies to help families in need … one hundred percent. With continued support, the organization has made the commitment to begin repairs on two new homes a week.

Two of the most recent homes belong to Roussel and Gonzales families, the houses the Revolution worked on for several hours on Tuesday afternoon.

Rosenburg met the team as they stepped off the bus and welcomed the team to Chalmette. He gave the group a brief introduction to his organization and told the team about the residents of St. Bernard Parish, both before and after the storm. Before the hurricane, home ownership stood between 70 and 75 percent; the median home income was $36,000; nearly 50 percent of the residents were retirees living on fixed incomes; many did not have flood insurance added to their homeowners insurance because they did not live in recognized flood plains. Residents lived their whole lives in the parish, and brought generations of their families up in the area. It was a proud region, but one ravaged and destroyed by Katrina.

Eighteen players and seven staff members were broken up into two groups, one to work on each house. Ten members started work on the Roussel’s home, priming the outside walls so it could be painted.

The rest of the group went over to Melanie Gonzales’ house, a home – when finished – she would share with her daughter and two grandchildren.

Until their homes were completed, both families were living in FEMA trailers parked on their lawns.

The Rousells’ house was further along than the Gonzales’. The inside had been reframed and dry walled already. The Gonzales’ home had only the frame up on the inside, and was in need of insulation and dry wall.

It’s hard to describe what happened in the next after the groups were formed. In the span of two hours, the Rousells’ home was completely primed (except for a two-foot strip near the roof on one side because the positioning of the trailer didn’t allow room for a ladder, which was needed to complete the wall.). The painting group even started work on another neighbor’s house, scraping old paint off so it too could be primed.

At the same time, a group of 15 or so players got to work on insulating the Gonzales’ home. When they started, not a nook had been completed and the walls were bare. Two hours later, all but three lengths of the ceiling were completed and all the walls were done. Additionally, hundreds of pounds of drywall had been moved into the house by the players.

Throughout the afternoon, the Gonzales watched over the Revs as they made the improvements to their home. They offered drinks and tours of their FEMA trailers, and shared their stories of recovery with the players and staff … and all the while held back tears as 25 men who they had never met helped reshape their lives.

After two hours, the Revs, begrudgingly, had to return to their hotel to prepare for a team meal. It wasn’t easy to get everyone to put down the paintbrushes, staple guns and measuring tapes. It took three calls by team staff to get everyone out of the houses and onto the street in order to load the bus. But even then, the group was stalled when Mrs. Gonzales came out with true Southern sweet tea for the Revs.

The Gonzales’ stood in amazement as the players thanked them on their way to the bus. They couldn’t understand why the group who just donated invaluable sweat equity to their home was thanking them for allowing them to help.

But it was true. Although the Revs would not personally benefit from the work they did on Tuesday afternoon, they were truly grateful for the opportunity to give back and help a family get back on its feet.

The Revs may never see the Roussels or the Gonzaleses again, and they may never see their homes finished, they know that they made gave a life-altering gift to two families who 20 months ago were just like anyone else … until the floods came, and their lives changed forever.