One year after Hurricane Katrina swamped the nave of the Church of the Annunciation and devastated the surrounding neighborhood known as Broadmoor in New Orleans, the church is playing a central role in assuring the neighborhood’s future.

When Mayor Ray Nagin’s Bring New Orleans Back Commission issued its recommendations for rebuilding the city, it placed a green circle over Broadmoor, meaning it thought the neighborhood should not be rebuilt.

Earlier this summer, after months of vigorous activism by the Broadmoor Improvement Association (BIA), Broadmoor was the third New Orleans neighborhood to present a detailed plan for its rebuilding.

“We went from being a green zone, a place set aside for drainage, to being the gold standard for urban planning,” says the Rev. Jerry Kramer, rector of the congregation that now goes by its historic name: Free Church of the Annunciation. (The historic name indicated Annunciation’s decision not to charge its members pew rentals.)

In the year since Katrina struck, Fr. Kramer has functioned as an entrepreneur of disaster relief and rebuilding. As he walks the block surrounding Annunciation’s recently deconsecrated nave, Fr. Kramer describes the church’s ambitious vision. One building will house Heavenly Grounds, a neighborhood coffee shop planned by the church. One house will be demolished and replaced by a community building and a small laundry facility. Another house will become the new meeting space of Annunciation’s youth group. Another building will become shared office space for Annunciation and the BIA, which now share office space in a mobile home in Annunciation’s small parking lot.

The most dramatic change the parish is exploring: The former church would become a dining hall and base for volunteers who will help rebuild the neighborhood. Annunciation’s former parish hall would become dormitory rooms for those volunteers. Under the plan, Annunciation would hold worship in a modular building, decorated to look more like a traditional and permanent church, for roughly the next decade.

Leaders of the BIA praise Fr. Kramer and the congregation of Annunciation for pouring themselves into the neighborhood’s survival and its future.

“If it weren’t for the tremendous largesse and generosity of Annunciation, and the meeting space at First Presbyterian Church, we would be nowhere,” says Hal Roark, the BIA’s revitalization co-chair, who began going to church after Katrina and now attends Annunciation.

Mr. Roark says Annunciation has been especially helpful in providing rapid grants for such basic needs as photocopies to announce neighborhood meetings.

“I need fast cash that trusts we’re not going to Aruba. It’s a character-based system,” he says. “If it weren’t for the churches, we would be dead.”

LaToya Cantrell, BIA’s president, also praises Annunciation for helping BIA fight for the neighborhood’s future. “That’s what is missing in many parts of this city, that faith-based partnership,” she says. “I think the problem is that we don’t have Annunciations all across this city.”

Douglas LeBlanc

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