The Next American City--Pass Christian

This is an old article, but I guess it still holds

The Next American City:

"Town officials have accepted an offer from Wal-Mart to turn the once-historic downtown, formerly a strip of antique shops, boutiques, and health food stores shaded by a canopy of 300-year-old live oaks, into an area to be known as Pass Christian Wal-Mart Village. According to the Mississippi Renewal Forum, a consortium started last October by Governor Haley Barbour, the retail giant has partnered with a New Orleans-based real-estate development company called Historic Restoration, Inc. “to develop the mixed-use housing portion of the project.”"

Bush to visit Miss. Coast and New Orleans

Bush to visit Miss. Coast and New Orleans:

"President Bush is scheduled to visit the Mississippi Coast and New Orleans this week, according to a report in The Sun Herald newspaper.
The newspaper quotes a news advisory issued by the White House. It says the President is set to arrive on Thursday."

10 Day Weather Forecast for Pass Christian, MS - weather.com

10 Day Weather Forecast for Pass Christian, MS - weather.com:

"Sat Mar 3
Mostly Cloudy 67°/45° 10%

Sun Mar 4
Partly Cloudy 64°/42° 10%"

Hometime - How-To - Project Help - Drywall

Given what we will likely be doing in the Gulf over break, this is a good site to take a look at:

Hometime - How-To - Project Help - Drywall:

"When hanging drywall always work from the top to the bottom. And always run the drywall sheets perpendicular to the framing.

Hang drywall on ceilings before walls, so the sheets on the walls can help support the corners of the ceiling sheets."

St. Bonaventure University: BonaResponds readies for return to the Gulf

St. Bonaventure University: BonaResponds readies for return to the Gulf:

"When St. Bonaventure University’s BonaResponds group invaded the Gulf Coast last March, it did so with sledgehammers and pry bars to help gut homes saturated by Hurricane Katrina. When the local army of volunteers heads south this year its mission will be focused on rebuilding. "

Katrina 'voluntourists' make labor a vacation - USATODAY.com

Katrina 'voluntourists' make labor a vacation - USATODAY.com:

"Shattuck is among the massive wave of volunteers — half a million, by one estimate — who have come here from across the nation in the nearly 18 months since Katrina struck.

Their impact on the storm-ravaged state has been immeasurable. From Pascagoula in the east to Bay St. Louis in the west, these volunteers have been the one positive constant for residents who have battled through lengthy power outages, mosquito infestations, stuffy FEMA trailers, recalcitrant insurers and an often molasses-slow government bureaucracy.

'They built our community back,' D'Iberville Mayor Rusty Quave says. 'Without those volunteer groups, we would be just starting. Our houses would be like some of the parishes in Louisiana where there are 10,000 houses that have not been mucked out.'"

Duke Program Seeks to Expand Service Work - New York Times

How can BonaResponds emulate this???

Duke Program Seeks to Expand Service Work - New York Times:

"Duke University announced yesterday that it would create a program backed by $30 million, half from a donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to help students work on projects like teaching at a school in Durham, N.C., or building one in Kenya."

NYTimes on Residents giving up

From the NY Times:

"A year ago, Ms. Larsen, 36, and Mr. Langlois, 37, were hopeful New Orleanians eager to rebuild and improve the city they adored. But now they have joined hundreds of the city’s best and brightest who, as if finally acknowledging a lover’s destructive impulses, have made the wrenching decision to leave at a time when the population is supposed to be rebounding.

Their reasons include high crime, high rents, soaring insurance premiums and what many call a lack of leadership, competence, money and progress. In other words: yes, it is still bad down here. But more damning is what many of them describe as a dissipating sense of possibility, a dwindling chance at redemption for a great city that, even before the storm, cried out for great improvement."

A thank you from our Snow Shoveling day!

We shoveled some elderly homeowners today. Most of our list came from St. Johns. We got the following email from Jen (a BonaRespond member and St. Johns employee.)

"Perhaps you can pass this on -- it's Friday, 4:15pm, and I just got off the phone with one of our parishioners, who called the office to say "thank you for sending those angels from St. Bonaventure to shovel for me. I didn't know how I was ever going to get it done. This is just wonderful! Thank you so much!"