| Gulf Coast Recovery |
Plenty’s work in the Gulf continues.
Donations are still needed to help Gulf coast families with home repair, food, toys and clothing, and support for Books To Kids.
To donate or for more info, contact plenty@plenty.org |
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Hurricane Katrina, and the subsequent BP oil spill, shone a spotlight on our county’s “national sacrifice area” - the Gulf and states bordering the Gulf.
The Gulf Coast has long been a place where the people, environment and wildlife are sacrificed to the unregulated interests of energy corporations and US demands for oil and gas.
When Plenty went into the Gulf in the beginning of September 2005, we said we would simply try and fill in the cracks left from the work by the big relief agencies.
We soon discovered the “big relief agencies” weren’t able to begin to cope with the size of the disaster. There weren’t just cracks. There were canyons to be filled.....
Add to this a generally incompetent and inadequate response on the part of federal, state and local government bureaucracies to the challenges of climate change.
Mix in the long-festering issues of chronic poverty and racism, and we see a glaring example of a complex human problem which affects all of us, and for which we are all ultimately responsible.
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Post Katrina New Orleans 
Apartment units unaffected by floodwaters were shut down exacerbating an already monumental housing shortage.
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People from all over the country contributed their skills and labor from the very first days of the disaster.
Initially, Plenty volunteers collected and distributed busloads of emergency supplies such as water, food, cleaning supplies, clothes and medicines.
Plenty medical volunteers performed primary care including giving inoculations to people at risk of infectious diseases. |
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| Reconstruction |
Along the Gulf Coast the recovery from Katrina has been long and difficult, especially for the poor, elderly and others of modest means.
For four and a half years Tony Sferlazza (far right), an experienced building contractor, was Plenty’s main presence in the Gulf.
Tony befriended many people while working with volunteers installing sheetrock, floors, kitchens, bathrooms, windows and doors so that some of greater New Orleans’ most vulnerable residents could have their damaged homes livable again. |
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Elderly residents of the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish and members of the Native Choctaw and Biloxi-Chitimacha communities of Pointe-aux-Chenes and Isle de Jean Charles have been Plenty’s priority.
Plenty volunteers have made extensive repairs and performed continuous maintenance on the Community Center of St. Bernard Parish.
More than 100 Plenty volunteers have assisted families in the Gulf.
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St. Bernard Community Center |
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Chief Albert Naquin |
Since 2005 Plenty has documented the struggles and ordeals of Gulf Coast residents, and the reactions of volunteers and public officials, through video interviews.
These productions aid our ongoing relief efforts by allowing our funders and supporters to hear directly from the people, as they express their frustrations and their needs,
With media coverage having virtually disappeared after the sensationalism of the initial disasters having faded from the immediate attention of 24 hour news cycle, our videos help give the people of the Gulf a voice, a way to be heard that is unfiltered, in their own words.
Now you can watch the video and hear what they have to say. |
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Books To Kids |
Jim Selin (center) founder of Books To Kids |
Beginning in 2007, Plenty began supporting a program called Books To Kids.
As of fall 2011, Books To Kids volunteers have collected and distributed over 65,000 quality children’s books to schools, families and community centers along the Gulf Coast. Five or six book distributions are done each year. The effort also includes the collection and distribution of musical instruments to schools and a Holiday Toy Drive.
This letter from a New Orleans elementary school librarian describes the impact of this simple project:
"On behalf of the students of Drew Elementary, I would like to thank Plenty for all of the wonderful books...Many of our students lost all their books in the flood after Katrina.
You can imagine how excited they were to see Mr. Selin and all the books he delivered to our school. Our school library was empty until Jim brought the books from Plenty.
Students were permitted to come to the library and select books to take home to start their book collections again. They were delighted.”
Susan G. Hughes, Librarian, Charles R. Drew Elementary School, Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans....more
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Beyond New Orleans: Gulf Coast Communities |
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The BP oil disaster in the spring of 2010 added a devastating blow to Gulf Coast communities.
Native families who for decades have relied on harvesting shrimp and oysters from the Gulf have been deprived of their livelihoods.
Plenty provided emergency distributions of food and clothing to some of the Native families who were impacted.
We work with tribal leaders to identify the most needy families as well as to track longer-term impacts to the health and well being of these most-threatened communities.
In 2011 Calvin Langley has been assisting the Biloxi Chitimacha Native American tribe along the bayou in Terrebonne Parish, an area severely affected by the BP oil spill.
They are constructing a community center, which will also serve as a tribal office, hurricane shelter, library, computer lab and emergency supplies storage facility.
The tribe lives in an area prone to hurricanes, having little protection from wetlands or a protective levee system....more |
Plenty volunteer, Calvin Langley, above left, and Pointe-aux-Chene Biloxi-Chitimacha tribal member, Donald Dardar, setting a door to the new tribal multi-purpose building they have been constructing to house tribal offices, a library, computer lab, and supplies for emergencies such as hurricanes and floods.. |
We want to acknowledge the generous grants to Plenty from:
Partnerships
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Thank You to:
- Mike Wells and Daniel Evans Farkas for your vehicles
- Kevin Curley for the use of your land
- Thanks to the hundreds of individual Plenty donors that helped to make Plenty’s Katrina Relief Project the most highly funded Plenty project for one year in our history.
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