Dear Friends,
Nearly five years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the nation’s eyes return to our region. Oil is gushing from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill at the rate of 210,000 gallons a day, threatening Louisiana’s coastal communities and wildlife with destruction on an unprecedented scale.
The Greater New Orleans Foundation has opened the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund to respond to this disaster. As the community foundation serving the Greater New Orleans area for over 25 years, we are prepared to hit the ground running, working with nonprofit organizations throughout the region in both the short- and the long-term.
In the short term, the fund will support the communities most affected by the oil spill in Plaquemines, St. Bernard, and lower Jefferson Parishes. In the long term, the fund will help address the economic, environmental, and cultural effects of the disaster, and strengthen coastal communities against future environmental catastrophes.
When Hurricane Katrina struck, changing our region and our foundation’s role forever, the Greater New Orleans Foundation established the Rebuild New Orleans Fund. We made emergency grants to nonprofit organizations working tirelessly to rebuild an overwhelmed community in the immediate aftermath. Since then, we have leveraged close to half a billion dollars in strategic investments of staff time and grants to revitalize and strengthen our community.
Today, we are as committed as ever to protecting and defending our region. BP’s effort to stop the oil spill is predicted to take at least 2-3 months, and in the meantime, the survival of our coastal communities and wildlife hangs in the balance.
Please donate today to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund as generously as you can. We will leverage the fund’s dollars to have the maximum impact on protecting and restoring our Louisiana coastal communities.
With our most sincere thanks,
Albert Ruesga
President & CEO
Greater New Orleans Foundation
