SLIDELL, La. (WGNO) – Mayor Freddy Drennan remembers when the eye of the storm passed directly over St. Tammany Parish, and the Slidell community united.
“We were met in the streets by our own citizens. We were met by people in their own private boats, we were met by people with their own chainsaws, and axes and four-wheel-drive trucks,” recalls Mayor Drennan.
A decade later, Slidell’s citizens are still working together to overcome the effects of Katrina, this time armed with paintbrushes, glue and creative spirit.
“After Katrina we expected the arts support to diminish a little bit while people were focused on rebuilding, but the exact opposite is what happened,” says Kim Bergeron, the curator of Hope for Habitat: Katrina X, on display at City Hall, and online.
It’s a project that paints a picture of healing, to benefit the East St. Tammany Habitat for Humanity.
“The arts community was instrumental in our emotional healing and our spiritual rebuilding and so this exhibit was a way to honor those artists,” says Bergeron, who is an artist herself.
Many pieces have celebrity signatures—and all pieces are being auctioned online.
Click here to take an online tour and bid on pieces to help St. Tammany’s ongoing Katrina recovery.
There’s a fiddle signed by the Charlie Daniels Band, an eclectic version of the Saints and Sinners restaurant, signed by celebrity Channing Tatum, and a pet rescue-themed creation signed by animal rights activist and actor, Ian Somerhalder.
Artist Charlotte Lowry Collins says caring for animals helped her, and others, recover.
“They could curl up in your lap they could beg for a morsel. I remember a peacock coming up and you thought, ‘Wow this is something I can do.’ Meanwhile you’re looking at this house thinking, ‘How am I gonna fix this?’”
The mayor sums it up, “Katrina tore up a lot of things and damaged a lot of things, but on the heels of that, a lot of new things are here, a lot of bigger and better things.”
There’s still time to bid — the online auction wraps up tonight (Saturday).