The Grand Bois Healing House is a home place that is a cultural gathering place, classroom and site for celebration and skills sharing in good times; And in times of uncertainty or emergency it can be used as a battery charging station and emergency distribution/communication center for community.
Intentions & Visions
We envision and are in the process of building gardens and an ancestral house where intergenerational gatherings can be hosted for folks from down the bayou and beyond to connect, where traditional skills can be shared and where circular economies can be activated.
A place where Indigenous architecture and technologies meet twenty-first century possibilities that support food-ways and food sovereignty strategizing, where solar education and community owned power can be accessed, where the wisdom of the past informs and inspires modern adaptations.
Technologies & Possibilities
In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Footprint Solar project helped the community in Grand Bois to setup a small generator and wifi hotspots to assist with helping to support in getting community members internet access and the Saint Bernard Project helped to support setting up systems so folks in the area were able to apply for assistance through FEMA and the SBA.
The Grand Bois Healing House has been built out of cypress planks, and a mud and moss chimney like the original ancestral home of the Celestine Verdin’s clan will be built in community in the near future. Some of the cypress has been harvested from surrounding areas that were uprooted or knocked down from the strong winds of hurricanes past.
Danny Friloux and community have made these trees reusable by purchasing a sawmill and woodworking tools to teach visitors that even after a disaster damaged trees can be used for repairing and building homes, boats, small tools and crafts.
Partners & Friends
Special thanks to our Accomplices and Friends, especially the School House 4 ReImagining Education, the Center for American Indian Research and Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi, the Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange, FootPrint Project, Mondo Bizarro Productions, Okla Hina Ikhish Holo, Another Gulf is Possible, the Neighborhood Story Project, the Gulf South Open School & the Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network.
Visit the Healing House
If you or your network are interested in visiting the Healing House. Please email us at [email protected]