After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Parish of Pointe Coupee took in some 5,000 evacuees from Louisiana and Mississippi. T hat's when a 3-year old organization called the Pointe Coupee Community Enrichment Fund stepped up and coordinated handing out thousands of dollars in grants to groups ready to help evacuees. Now, that kindness has won Pointe Coupee some life-long friends.
Along the banks of the False River, it's hard to imagine the rage of the water that caused Joseph and Dinah Anderson to be swept out of their uptown New Orleans home by helicopter.
But according to Joseph, "we're making it, going day by day, doing what we have to do."
Today, the enrichment fund is helping to fund the Council on Aging van that helps take the Andersons to their doctor appointments, or to shop or to eat.
"It's like down home-folkin' again," says Dinah. "We're cookin' and we're eatin' and we're just goin' places and enjoyin' ourselves."
From the shores of Bay St. Louis where her home was gutted, Sandy Stone and her grandson found a haven in the community care outreach center the enrichment fund helped equip to handle 150 children in after-school care, and to offer a "strengthening families" group once a week.
"They were there for me," says Stone. "I'll never forget how they just took me in."
"When the 5,000 new residents came to town then we really had to step up and this parish really did that," says Ann Rasmussen, the Pointe Coupee Community Enrichment Fund director.
They even helped the Livonia Police Department when extra people travelling LA-190 created a safety hazard.
"We live in a rural parish and any response from an ambulance to an accident is normally about 20 or 30 minutes," according to Livonia Police Chief Brad Joffrion.
So the enrichment fund helped the department get six defibrillators -- one for each officer's car -- to respond to accidents.
2,000 evacuees still call Pointe Coupee home.
"We're proud to have them here," says Rasmussen. "We're happy to have them here, and we're very excited that they want to stay. I think that says a lot about Pointe Coupee."
And though they may go back home one day, Joe and Dinah and Sandy won't soon forget the friends they made along False River.
To kick off this weekend's 'Antiquing on the River' weekend in New Roads, the enrichment fund is inviting everyone to a special gala evening open to the public, called "The Pointe of it All."
That's Friday night starting at 6:30 p.m. at the plantation home of Joanna Wurtele at 8719 False River Road in New Roads.
Any contribution is your admission.
Reporter: Julie Baxter (jbaxter@wafb.com)
