Lower Ninth Ward Holy Cross Neighborhood

Greetings! We woke up early Sunday morning and headed into New Orleans, to the Holy Cross neighborhood of the lower Ninth Ward. We were split into two groups; one group worked to clean up one of the neighborhood’s treasures, the Doullut Steamboat House (one of a pair built at the start of the 20th century by Milton P. Doullut, a steamboat captain). This house, just behind the Mississippi River levee, survived, but the image to the left (from the web) will give you a sense of what it once was. We powerwashed and cleaned and weeded and mulched and planted (lots), to ready the place for a reception tonight for George Soros’ Open Society Institute, a major fundraising effort to benefit the neighborhood. Some broke off to help several elderly residents with their gardens, while still others helped ready a space which will become an art center for children in the area.