Other key organizers included Jackie Sumell, Jimmy Dunson, Kerul Dyer, Suncere Shakur, Naomi Archer (Ana Oian Amets), Emily Posner, and Jenka Soderberg.

The effort expanded to providing assistance to homeowners and residents trying to move back into other areas of the city and region—such as the Lower Ninth Ward, St. Bernard Parish, and Houma—where flood-protection infrastructure had failed after the hurricane.

[7] An ABC News Nightline report described the volunteers as "mostly young people filled with energy and idealism, and untainted by cynicism and despair, and mostly white, [who] have come from across America and from countries as far away as Indonesia."

There are (categories not mutually exclusive) nurses, doctors, psychiatrists, pharmacists, anarchists, herbalists, acupuncturists, community organizers, journalists, legal representatives, aid workers, proletarian neighborhood members, EMT’s, squatters, gutter punks, artists, mechanics, chiropractors, clergy, and so forth involved.

A huge sign outside the door reads, “Solidarity Not Charity” and this statement exemplifies the perspective of those involved.In early 2006, Common Ground Relief volunteers completed an unsanctioned clean-up of Martin Luther King Charter School in the Lower 9th Ward, which was subsequently reopened.

CGR management froze the rents at the Woodlands to pre-Katrina levels, helped create a tenants union, and ran a workers' cooperative with paid skills training.

Darby testified on behalf of the prosecution at the trial of David McKay of Midland, Texas who was arrested at the RNC on charges of making and possessing Molotov cocktails.