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We are raising money through the entire month of April 2009 for the Pastor Jerry Project.

5% of all website sales for the month of April will go towards this cause.

The link to The Pastor Jerry Project is

http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/biomi290/PJ/PJ2.html

The link to Love Knows No Bounds is

http://www.renew-orleans.org/

Please read the following which explains why how we are helping a family still displaced by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

WINNING THE BATTLE FOR NEW ORLEANS

On September 13, 2005, fourteen days after the New Orleans levees were breached, the neo-conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation hosted a gathering of like minded influential folk to formulate policies for responding to Hurricane Katrina. The gathering ended by recommending thirty-two policies in all. The first three items were:
1. Automatically suspend Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws in the disaster area. (Davis Bacon is the law that requires bidders winning Federal contracts to pay a living wage).
2. Make the entire affected area a “flat-tax free-enterprise zone.”
3. Make the entire region an economic competitiveness zone, including comprehensive corporate tax incentives and waiving of restrictive regulations.
All these measures were announced by President Bush within the week. He was later forced to reinstate labor standards, but these were largely ignored by the contractors.
Eventually 3.4 billion dollars in no-bid contracts were awarded to contractors such as Halliburton, Blackwater, Bechtel, and other familiar Iraq players. A quarter of the workers who rebuilt the city were immigrant lacking papers, almost all Hispanic, making far less money than legal workers. Few were workers from the devastated 7th and 9th Wards. Prior to the Hurricane contracts totaling one million dollars to formulate catastrophic hurricane disaster plans for the City of New Orleans had been awarded to Innovative Emergency Management. There had been, however, no implementation. “Money was not available to do follow-up” explained FEMA director Michael Brown.

It is not hard to see the motivation behind these terrible and cynical policies – urban renewal by natural disaster. Hardly any of the money found its way into the devastated, largely African-American 7th and 9th Wards. Of five high schools in this area, one is functioning today. Charity Hospital, the only large medical facility servicing these impoverished areas, is still in ruins.
Despite all the tragedy, suffering, and struggle – which is very far from over – a triumph of sorts is emerging. Although approximately two-thirds of the homes in the 7th dand 9th Wards have not been restored, Halliburton, Bechtel, and similar contractors will not be bulldozing large areas of these wards to make room for high-end, high profit projects. The reason? The courage, decency, kindness, compassion, and passionate commitment of very ordinary people from every corner of the United States who have traveled to New Orleans to rebuild the city. As a result, throughout the devastated area, it is very hard to find a single city block in which anywhere from three or four to seven or eight houses have not been partially or completely restored by volunteer labor. As a result Halliburton and other corporations won’t be coming into court in eminent domain proceedings to bulldoze these blocks and line their pockets. Already there are too many “facts on the ground.”  A crucial victory is being won, slowly but surely.
Ithaca’s Reform Congregation Tikkun v”Or, in conjunction with Love Knows No Bounds – an Ithaca-based organization for bringing relief to New Orleans -- is playing a pivotal role in this struggle. We’ve been spearheading an interfaith effort to rebuild the home of Baptist Pastor Jerry Darby and his wife, Norma. Driven from New Orleans to Alvin, Texas, by Katrina, Jerry and Norma commute six hours each way every week back to New Orleans to minister to their decimated congregation – of 225 member families before Katrina they are down to 50. They and Pastor Bruce Davenport, and his wife Debra Davenport of St. John #5 Baptist Church provide vital support, assistance to the homeless, food pantries, pastoral counseling to still-traumatized residents, AIDS counseling and condoms, etc., etc., in the neediest areas of the City. Our Congregation has either sent down ourselves, or provided all or part of the funding and organization, for five trips to New Orleans. Ithaca’s First Baptist Church has pitched in too. Already the Darby home is beginning to take shape – with a new foundation, new master bedroom addition, new roof, repaired flooring, framing, electrical wiring, etc.
All the work is being done by volunteers who donate their time, and travel to New Orleans at their own expense. The money we raise – and which we desperately need – all goes for materials. We estimate another seven or eight volunteer-weeks of work are needed to complete the project. We need help raising money for construction materials. If you can find the time to go to New Orleans for a week, you’ll be richly rewarded. You’ll have a moving experience, great time, and a feeling of accomplishment. The New Orleans folk are incredibly grateful; you’ll get more out this than you put in.

Tony Gaenslen
Co Vice President, Congregatin Tikkun v'Or
Coordinator, Pastor Jerry Project Steering Committee.