Town meetings scheduled March & April for public input
Efforts to save and restore the 93-year-old Des Allemands Elementary School have gone slower than Roy Lunk would like, but he’s also pleased with it being time to ask residents how they want it to serve them as a museum.
“This will give us the opportunity to give everyone an update on the progress we’ve done,” said the man who proposed the idea of saving the historic building. “Everything is coming together.”
When Lunk first spoke of the project last year from the front steps of the old schoolhouse or old Comardelle building, he recounted how he spoke up at a town hall meeting to not only save it but to turn it into a museum. The building is aged, but it was determined the original portion of the structure could be saved so a group of concerned citizens got funds from the United Way of St. Charles and formed a nonprofit board in 2013.
There was just no doubt in Lunk’s mind about why the little building was worth saving, so efforts then shifted to raising money.
Three town meetings are scheduled to invite public input on what the museum should do and what can be achieved with it. Cortez said attendees also are invited to bring artifacts for the museum.
The meetings are scheduled:
– March 19, 5:30 p.m., Des Allemands Fire Station- April 7, 5:30 p.m. at Bayou Gauche Fire Station, 410 1st St.- April 8, 5:30 p.m. at the Paradis Fire Station, 807 Barber Road.
At each meeting, a brief feasibility study will be done, as well as examining the strengths of each area to support and sustain a small museum and assess how to house the culture.Opened on Nov. 5, 1923, the 40-foot by 30-foot building served as the community of Des Allemands’ school for grades 1 – 7 until 1931 when it was replaced by a brick building.
It was barged 12 miles downstream to the Comardelle Village where it again served as a school until 1941. It was again placed on a barge and this time it traveled nine miles upstream to become Bayou Gauche’s school, Lunk said. When the school bus system started busing children to the Des Allemands School, the building was yet again moved to its present location at 1486 WPA Road.
This workhorse of a building became a meeting hall for the American Legion Post 316, as well as Des Allemands Catfish festivals. By March 23, 2011, it was marked for demolition until Lunk suggested it be used as a museum.
Justin Cortez of Des Allemands, who chairs the museum board and ad hoc committee charged with moving the strategic plan to get the project done, said the goal is to have the museum doors open by March 2019.
Public input will help develop the plan for the museum, which they hope to complete by June 1, Cortez said. Des Allemands, Bayou Gauche, Paradis Museum Society, which was established and charged with restoring the schoolhouse as a museum, will then start the next phase of funding, such as how to get grants for the project that they hope to have in place by Oct. 1. From there, they will set the plan in motion with a business plan, budget, funding and determine the number of employees needed to operate the museum.
Laura Browning Montegut, the grant consultant for the project, said the goal is “to create a place where you will discover a little bit of you in the museum. It will be a magical place, full of treasures troves of interesting stuff that we hope will make you think, and see the world and the community in a different way, gaining insight in the way life used to be for Des Allemands, Bayou Gauche and Paradis.”
“The museum is really going to give the towns of Des Allemands and Bayou Gauche some heritage, but also create some community atmosphere,” Cortez said. “I think it will really strengthen the community.”
Plans are for the museum to house artifacts and photographs, as well as offer learning programs and demonstrations on how boats and pirogues were made, Cortez said. The demonstrations will focus on the 1800s to early 1900s featuring life in Des Allemands and the typical life of a person in this time period.
“We feel it’s a need right now because … with new technology and social media … everyone is taking off and joining the global network,” he said. “We feel it’s important to bring young people in and let them see how it was. Also, older residents can reminisce and get that kind of tie here – give them that sense of home.”
Be the first to comment