GULF COAST RECOVERY

From left, Lyla Nathon, Margaret Holub, Donna Feiner, Cathy Mellon, Calvin Langley, Frank Fanto and, in front, Elaine Langley, Chris and Chris's niece, Juliette.

Plenty's work along Louisiana's Gulf Coast remains active thanks to the continuing support of Plenty's Gulf Recovery Program by Dreamcatchers' Gary Rhine Memorial Fund, the Philip R. Jonsson Foundation, the Posel Foundation, Onaway Trust, the Farm Community in Tennessee and numerous individual donors and volunteers and our partnership with United Peace Relief. In mid-March a group of volunteers from California came with Frank Fanto who has volunteered with us before. They did repairs on Chris Brunet's house on Isle de Jean Charles. The island is a thin sliver gradually eroding into the salt water that surrounds it. Before the big oil companies started dredging and erecting oil rigs in 1960 and 1970, elderly residents remember it was covered with trees, and near-by barrier islands and wetlands mitigated the impacts of hurricanes.

Wenceslaus Billiot (right) was born and raised on Isle de Jean Charles and has traced his Choctaw-Biloxi-Chitimacha ancestry back to the 17th century. He's a veteran of WWII and spent 20 years as a tugboat captain. The Isle was spared the brunt of hurricane Katrina, but hurricanes Rita, Gustav and Ike did real damage. When we asked Wenceslaus how much longer he thought he could continue living on the Isle, he shrugged and said he just didn't know anymore.

Margaret and Lyla hang siding. (Cathy supervises.)

Donna Feiner rewired and plumbed Chris Brunet's hot water heater.

A house on Isle de Jean Charles as of March 23, 2009.