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Articles:
Introduction
The Gulf: Two Years Later
Plenty Belize
Guatemala
Pine Ridge Agriculture
Kids To The Country, Summer ‘07
The Gulf: Two Years Later
Lower 9th Ward survivor, Vernon Washington (87 yrs.) talks with Plenty staff Elaine Langley, RN and Tony Sferlazza in front of his gutted house. He is currently living in a FEMA trailer. Brian Quinn, Plenty volunteer and professional electrician, rewires a house in the Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans. Linda Audibert (above, right) is living in her gutted house with two grandchildren, 3 and 1 years old. She has a FEMA trailer but it became too moldy and the formaldehyde emissions were affecting her health and the health of her grandchildren. Plenty Gulf Recovery Project staff members Tony and Elaine brought her quilts from the More Than Warmth project and toys for the children. Linda is on our list of candidates for house repair. Plenty volunteers Forrest Blass (left) and Val Peterson sheetrock Ms. Emma Prebost’s bathroom in her house in Arabi, Louisiana (St. Bernard Parish). Ms. Emma is 83. Rene “Rudy” Aguilar, Sr. (in hat) of Arabi, LA is living with his wife and three young children in an 8 foot by 25 foot FEMA trailer. Before Katrina he was the Environmental Engineer for St. Bernard Parish which is adjacent to the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. He was laid off after the storm because the Parish said it didn’t have the tax base to support his position in spite of the fact that the Parish is home to a huge and toxic Exxon/Mobile oil refinery and a Murphy Oil refinery which experienced one of the largest land oil spills in US history during Katrina: more than one million gallons of crude oil impacting more than a square mile and 1700 residences. Currently living on unemployment while he searches for work, Rudy says for what it cost FEMA to buy, transport, and set up his FEMA trailer, he could have made the necessary repairs to his home, which was inundated with 15 feet of floodwaters while he and his family watched from their second story. Every month, Jim Selin, Plenty Gulf Recovery Project volunteer from Nashville, loads up his Toyota wagon with books and other materials and heads for Mississippi and New Orleans where he makes stops at homes, schools and community centers to unload his gifts. He then makes the rounds of library book sales and second hand stores where he carefully selects and purchases more books and distributes these as well. In the photo above he is dropping off books and toys with NOLA’s 7th Ward angel and activist, “Mama D” (Dyan French Cole) who organizes creative activities for kids and adults in her neighborhood.
With the generous financial support of DreamCatchers, Philip R. Jonsson Foundation, Rick Foundation and the hard work of numerous individual Plenty donors, and several skilled volunteers we have been able to continue our efforts to help people repair their hurricane-damaged homes so they can move out of toxic FEMA trailers and begin the process of rebuilding their lives.
In August, to mark the Second Anniversary of Katrina, Plenty teamed up with Robert Greenwald’s “Brave New Films” and Village Media to create a 4 minute documentary highlighting the stories of just a few of the survivors and what they’ve been experiencing. You can watch the video and read about other peopel we are trying to help get back into their homes by clicking here.