Celebrating the Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi

Hello all - sorry the blog has been quiet for so long - we are making lots of progress so hopefully you will start to see more posts. The Gretna Heritage Festival was fantastic and we were happily surprised our idea ended up raising money for the Louisiana SPCA! www.SaintsforSinners.com Imported Italian Saints Medallions Hand-Painted in New Orleans, Louisiana 5866 General Diaz Street, New Orleans, LA 70124 504.482.2467 (Office) 504.239.3143 (Mobil) Rock504@aol.com Rob Clemenz, Founder Ms. Ana Zorrilla , Executive Director October 6, 2008 Louisiana SPCA 1700 Mardi Gras Boulevard New Orleans, LA 70114 Reference: Donation to the Louisiana SPCA via SaintsforSinners.com Dear Ana, Please find enclosed a check for $ 211.47, which is a donation from many of the animal lovers who attended the Gretna Heritage Festival this past weekend. We sold our hand-painted Saints medallions at the Festival and tried a fund raising idea to gather donations for the SPCA. Since Saint Francis of Assisi’s Feast Day was this past Saturday, we wanted to honor him by helping the SPCA. We put a plate on our table and filled it with the old, rusty Saints medals we lost in the flood of August, 2005. When we returned to New Orleans in September, ’05, we decided we simply could not let our Saints medals just be bulldozed away, along with the rest of our house. So, we dug through the muck of our flood ravaged home until we uncovered all of our bins of thousands of Saints medals. They were very messy and dirty and seemed completely useless. But you could still tell they were Saints medals. So we let them dry in the sun and then put them all in a big bucket. And then, this past weekend, we treated our Saints medals as the tiny pieces of history that they have become. We put up a sign by our plate of ruined “flood medals,” left out an empty jar, and put the Saints medals up for sale, asking for a donation. The response was fantastic! Many Gretna Festival goers dug through the medals until they found the Saint they wanted. Others just put money in the jar and handed us a medal. We placed each “flood medal” in a clear zip locked bag and made a notation with our Sharpie markers. We hope the money we collected helps the Louisiana SPCA and the animals. Respectfully yours, Rob Clemenz, SfS Jess LiRocchi, SfS Christina E. McCarson, SfS & all the Generous Gretna Festival Goers!