VISIONS Mississippi participants will live and work in coastal Mississippi neighborhoods described in this September 2005 press release of the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law:

North Gulfport and Turkey Creek are communities rooted in African American history. Purchased and settled by a group of recently emancipated African Americans in 1866, the few acres of land later known as Turkey Creek was a vibrant, self-sufficient neighborhood, replete with farms, homesteads and the first African American school in the Gulfport region. In the early 1900s, North Gulfport and Turkey Creek also served as refuges for African Americans that were banned from Gulfport's local beaches due to the growth of lucrative resort development. At the time that Katrina struck, North Gulfport and Turkey Creek were the sites of numerous historic homes and minority businesses. Community groups and residents have been working hard to obtain historic preservation status and build affordable housing. Now, the communities are fighting to survive.

It will take years for the Gulf Coast to recover from Hurricane Katrina's unprecedented devastation, but well before Katrina, Turkey Creek and North Gulfport experienced "Uneven patterns of municipal service, encroaching commercial development and increased flooding." (Trisha Miller, "Crossing Muddy Waters.")

Last summer, working with Turkey Creek Community Initiatives (TCCI) and Audubon Mississippi, VISIONS participants built a 50-foot arched wooden bridge over a Turkey Creek tributary, easing access to community green space and bringing renewed attention to a neglected waterway that was once the setting for Saturday afternoon fishing contests and Sunday morning baptisms. We painted inspirational murals on all the walls of the student activity room in the North Gulfport Good Deeds Community Center, and throughout North Gulfport we distributed flyers with information from the North Gulfport Community Land Trust about legal rights and financial aid. In 2006 VISIONS constructed a 600-square-foot outdoor environmental classroom for the North Gulfport Middle School, participated with local elders in activities, and assisted other Katrina relief groups by handing out food and supplies and removing debris in Biloxi and other neighborhoods.

Of course, it won't all be work in Mississippi. A spontaneous invitation to Flower's family reunion, complete with his famous fried catfish. Big O's exuberant embrace and the unhesitant welcome of his congregation. Mark and Mary LaSalle's irresistible Cajun hospitality and Audubon wisdom and a Moss Point barbeque with live music and tall Southern tales. Rose Johnson's charismatic and fearless passion, her tireless advocacy for her home neighborhoods. Derrick Evans' captivating articulation of Turkey Creek's strategic and historic position as a watershed wetland. In October 2006 Robert Kennedy Jr., stood in the outdoor classroom that VISIONS built only months before and named Derrick Mississippi's first Waterkeeper as part of The Waterkeeper Alliance, a national advocacy group dedicated to preserving and protecting community waters from polluters. You'll fish on the bayou, take a flatboat spin to try your hand at crabbing, spend a long day and evening in New Orleans, ferry to Shipp Island, explore lush backwoods by canoe and more.

VISIONS Mississippi is your opportunity to do service work in a historically rich area of the United States, still in recovery from Katrina, whose residents you'll find hard to resist and easy to love.