Brad Pitt Watch

Thanks, guys, for your approval on the letter to Ms. Barr! I want to open the floor up to you on that one - if you’ve got a letter you’d like to send Ms. Barr, put it in the comments or contact me! I’ll not only post it here on the website, but will be collecting them in an attempt to send them all (in printed form hopefully) to Ms. Barr.

Want some good news? The NOLA project is moving forward quite swiftly!

The first of the homes being built by the Make It Right campaign is almost finished! Workers are doing their best to get all of the homes completed, but soon one family will be able to move back into the home they owned that was destroyed just a short time ago.

In a story about the new homes, Gertrude LeBlanc, a 72 years young retired postal worker, talks about the action going on in the Lower 9th Ward, and how she looks forward to old family friends returning, thanks to the Make It Right campaign.

Early last year, LeBlanc was one of the first people to return to this colossally damaged section of the Lower 9, not far from the Industrial Canal levee breach. “When I came back, they put up a banner in the post office near here, saying, ‘Miss Gert’s back. Deliver her mail, ‘ ” she said.

LeBlanc has been keeping close track of who has returned to the neighborhood. Within the next month, she said, mail service also should resume at Make It Right’s six houses, thanks to “the answer to our prayers — Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, ” LeBlanc said.

On her block, two of her longtime neighbors are coming back, thanks to the foundation. As she drinks her coffee in the morning, LeBlanc soon will be able to wave to a woman three lots down, who she has known for decades as Ms. Guy.

LeBlanc and her family also are counting the days until the return of their next-door neighbor Melba Barnes.

“She loves to cook, ” LeBlanc said. “There is nothing Melba can’t cook.”

LeBlanc pointed toward Barnes’ home on stilts. Barnes’ house and the others have solar panels and environmentally “green” amenities, and they look different from what LeBlanc is used to, she said.

Still, she and her neighbors plan to be neighborly, just like the old days, she said.

“We told Melba, ‘Just put that food on a rope and drop it down, ‘ ” LeBlanc said.

According to the Make It Right website, 84 of 150 homes have currently been sponsored. If you can, please remember to make a donation of whatever amount you can afford. Maybe you’re planning on having a yard sale - you can donate the proceeds to the Make It Right foundation. Maybe you’ve got some old DVD’s or games to sell on Ebay. Why not send the money to people who truly need it?

Thanks to people like us, families are finally getting to go home.

Thank you.