Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, taking lives and livelihoods and displacing thousands. Because the hurricane struck at the beginning of the school year, the city s children were among those most affected. Michael Tisserand, former editor of the alternative cultural newspaper Gambit Weekly, evacuated with his family to New Iberia, Louisiana. Then, rather than waiting to find out when or if schools in New Orleans would reopen, Tisserand and other parents persuaded one of his children s teachers, Paul Reynaud, to start a school among the sugarcane fields.
So was born the Sugarcane...