To contribute to the restoration of City Park The Society for Louisiana Irises (SLI),

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, has donated thousands of Louisiana Iris. The installation was planned prior to the New Orleans Flood and has been resumed.

Iris fans,

We are continuing our re-planting and rehabilitation of the New Orleans City Park lagoon system, a project I started working on before the storm, but has taken on a new meaning... bringing the Park back to its former glory and beyond. Along with other native wetland plants, Saturday we will planting several thousand Iris plants donated by Jeff Weeks and Patrick O'Connor. Thanks guys! We also have a collection donated from non-SLI member from gentleman from Crowley. He and his wife attended a convention about twenty years ago, then ordered all the ones they liked. It will be very interesting to see what comes up next spring. There will be additional plantings later this Fall. Thanks Rusty for you and Bud's support for a later planting, and I apologize to everyone for the short notice for this event.

Below is our "press release". What the general press release doesn't say is that the day activities are sponsored by the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board and Miller beer! After the planting, we have will boil 120 pounds of jumbo shrimp and a few crates of crabs, and have some genuine Miller products to accompany them. We'll also have some kids food, too, so please bring them along.

As many of you have heard, we have been blessed with tens of thousands of volunteers from all over the country that have come to help us rebuild our area. This whole event, for instance, would not be happening with out my new friends from Ohio State University, Yale, "Common Ground Collective" and Operation Blessing. Each of these folks/groups are helping with tools, logistics, plant moving, etc. Operation Blessing is even providing a boom-crane or a bobcat to remove the fallen trees that are still in the lagoons from the storm. We are hoping to get a good turn out from the local community to work side by side with our volunteer angels from afar.

A special thanks to Colleen Morgan, an intern from Yale, and Amanda Hardesty, a recent MS grad from OSU, both of whom have been down all summer and put this together.

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list a few of our other activates that our team of volunteers along with the LSU AgCenter/La Sea Grant Program have been working on.

Mark


When: 9 a.m. Saturday August 5, 2006

What: Bayou Rebirth at City Park. Volunteers will remove trees and limbs from the bayous and lagoons, eradicate non-native species, and plant native vegetation such as irises, bulrush and seaside paspallum. Volunteers are asked to bring garden gloves, a hat, sunscreen and cold drinks.

Festivities with end with lunch and refreshments at 1 pm at Shelter #5 (directly across Bayou Metairie from the Peristyle)

Who: Volunteers will meet at the Tennis Court parking lots in City Park at 9 a.m.

Why: The park's bayous and lagoons are one of the few remaining areas of the park that have not been cleared of debris and litter.

For further information contact:

Mark Schexnayder, LSU, at (504) 908-9718

Colleen Morgan, LSU, at (860) 309-9317

Amanda J Hardesty, LSU, at (513) 319-5918

John Hopper
Director of Development
New Orleans City Park
1 Palm Drive
New Orleans, LA 70124

(504) 259-1509

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Learn more about City Park's hurricane recovery efforts at:

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