Katrina National Memorial Park Charitable Foundati

Our mission is to build a national museum in New Orleans, Louisiana to provide a place to honor those who perished in Hurricane Katrina, remember and learn from the catastrophe, and celebrate the strength of the survivors and those who came to help rebuild. In creating this international destination, we will establish a system of apprenticeship and mentoring for the youth of New Orleans in the building and landscape trades, while using cutting-edge "green" technologies

The Katrina National Memorial Foundation Museum (KNMFM) started as a community museum. Located in a mixed zoning hub that has community resource centers and retail establishments within the first block off a major city artery, Broad Street, KNMFM is now a Hurricane Katrina resource center of national renown. The visitors, supporters, and ongoing contacts of KNMFM include residents, tourists from several states, advisors to the mayor, all members of the city council, a Louisiana senator, nationally recognized public figures, a foreign embassy, and thousands of Internet surfers who visit the webpage of KNMFM. These visitors, supporters, and ongoing contacts are the source of inspiration that compel the museum's founder, R. Omar Casimire, to seek funding for the project in this proposal.
The quintessential museum artifact of KNMFM is the Katrina List, which is a spreadsheet of approximately 10,000 names with contact information collected by the museum's founder in New Orleans after the evacuation for Hurricane Katrina while thousands of residents remained trapped to face the floodwaters of the storm. Every person who was a resident of New Orleans in August 2005 had some association with someone on the Katrina List. Visitors to the museum express a wide variety of emotions when searching the list for familiar names. Some say that they are surprised to know that a member on the Katrina List failed to evacuate. Many reveal sadness because a person whom they knew on the Katrina List did not survive the aftermath of the hurricane. All express amazement about this remarkable snapshot of history. The Katrina List, hundreds of photographs, and documents of the founder comprise an unparalleled record of Hurricane Katrina that requires preservation.
Therefore, the purpose of this project is to provide a proof of concept blueprint for ensuring the preservation of the artifacts in the KNMF Museum. The project has three components.
(1) Natural Disaster Preparedness Education,
(2) KNMF Museum Exhibit Preservation, and
(3) KNMF Exhibit Computerization.
First, KNMFM will create a lesson plan template and a document of disaster preparedness protocols. The purpose of this component is to provide secondary schools with a centralized source of information for engaging students during hurricane season. Second, KNMFM will contact survivors and families of survivors from the Katrina List to get interviews and video recordings of their Katrina Stories. The purpose of this component is to create one hundred digital records with background information and post-Katrina updates. Third, KNMFM will produce two versions of the project deliverables: a comprehensive collection for the museum and a subset of that collection for free distribution to the public.

Testimonials

Our ongoing efforts to commemorate and honor the memories of those lost to Hurricane Katrina, especially through the planned twentieth-anniversary events in 2025. The initiative to hold twenty-nine events over twenty-nine days, culminating in a meaningful ceremony at the site of the first Katrina Memorial, in the Historic Holy Cross Neighborhood at the Industrial Canal and the Mississippi River. This will be a beautiful way to pay tribute. Including prayers, flowers, and drum calls adds a deeply spiritual and ancestral dimension to the remembrance.

The involvement of various foundations, organizations, and notable figures like Spike Lee, as well as the collaboration with international consultants, underscores this commemoration's wide-reaching impact and significance. The development of a memorial park and Katrina sculpture by Jody Richardson sounds like an inspiring addition to the community and a fitting tribute to the victims and survivors of the hurricane.