[StBernard] Liz McCartney

[Westley Annis]

Kudos to Liz and friends.

My only regret is that someone did not whisper in her ear, "Dearie, the "St.
Bernard Project is/was a helluva name for a helluva place: The St. Bernard
Projects located off of St. Bernard Avenue in New Orleans. It is/was a
ghetto infested with crime culprits and victims known to many citizens of
New Orleans to please stay clear of its location!

Having known this area as a youngster, it and other public housing projects
like it, I've seen company delivery people removed from its sales and
deliveries in fear of robberies and worse.

Knowing this, I'm in awe as to why someone hadn't come forward to ask Liz
and company to please not use the word "project" in reference to its
disturbing name as it had the same nomenclature fear of other types of
low-income socialist housing interments such as the "Desire Project" and
others.

A better choice of name usage might have been St. Bernard Parish Enterprise,
St. Bernard Parish Recovery Project or the like. Leaving out the part of our
name, "Parish" is as hurtful as forgetting the names MrCartney or Rosenburg
in reference to a news article or deserving award to them.

AS in keep "Christ in our Christmas", so must we keep Parish in St. Bernard.

No offense offered to either of the heroes, but what must be said, must be
understood.

--jer-- 

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Liz McCartney and Zack Rosenburg show hand-crafted "St. Bernard Will Always
Be Home" glassware presented to them by St. Bernard Parish President Craig
P. Taffaro Jr. at a reception in honor of McCartney being named the 2008 CNN
Hero of the Year. About 100 people attended the reception in her honor at
the St. Bernard Parish Civic Center Grand Ballroom on Dec. 2. McCartney and
Rosenburg are the Co-Founders of the St. Bernard Project. "CNN Heroes: An
All-Star Tribute" was aired on Thanksgiving night and spotlighted ordinary
citizens accomplishing extraordinary deeds. McCartney was named one of ten
CNN HEROES honorees last month, out of nearly 4,000 nominations from 75
countries. She was awarded $25,000 as a finalist and won the $100,000 top
prize as well. She said the award money will allow her to rebuild about a
dozen more homes. Liz McCartney traveled from her home in Washington to New
Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to volunteer with the clean-up efforts.  She
and her boyfriend, Zack Rosenburg, were so deeply impacted by the
devastation they saw in St. Bernard Parish, a community whose 67,000
residents almost all lost their homes, that they left Washington in June
2006 and moved to Louisiana.  Neither knew anything about construction, but
both felt that they could use their experience raising money and organizing
volunteers to help with the rebuilding efforts. Within months, McCartney and
Rosenburg opened the nonprofit St. Bernard Project, which focuses on helping
those most in need -- senior citizens, the disabled and families with
children. Local residents joined the effort and taught them basic
construction. To date, more than 9,000 volunteers have worked with the St.
Bernard Project, enabling more than 150 families to move back into their
homes.