LatinaLista —
Campaign: The Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum
Nine years ago, Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, claiming over 1,800 lives.
Although much of New Orleans has been rebuilt, only one in five residents from the Lower Ninth Ward have been able to return.
The Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum was opened in 2013 to remember and celebrate the neighborhood’s vibrant history and culture through oral history interviews and exhibits.
The Living Museum has become a popular hub for community events and children’s programming. In the 1.5 years the Living Museum has been open, they have accomplished the following:
Gathered over 50 oral history interviews with Lower Ninth Ward residents and made them available online;
Held daily workshops and programming for local children, including homework club, drawing and painting workshops, holiday celebrations, movie nights and field trips;
Hosted community events, including neighborhood barbecues, book readings from Lower Ninth Ward authors, student symposiums, and rehearsals for local theater and slam poets; and
Welcomed over 2,500 visitors from 39 states and 12 countries.
The next dream of the museum is to build an ADA accessible wheelchair ramp to ensure that the museum is fully accessible to everyone who visits. It is an expensive but high priority alteration to the facility so that more people learn about the history of the Lower Ninth Ward, and more importantly – don’t forget it.
The campaign’s goal is $5,300 and ends on January 21, 2015.
