Gulf Aid Acadiana is a community response to the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling catastrophe. Thanks for visiting. Please explore our site and join our efforts!

Zachary Richard, Sonny Landreth, C.C. Adcock, Ani DiFranco and Dickie Landry joined forces FOR OUR COAST on Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010 at the Acadiana Center for the Arts Theater in Lafayette, La. Photo by Terri Fensel.

Thanks to Marianne Faithfull, Doug Pettibone, James Trussart, Francis X. Pavy and everyone who came together FOR OUR COAST to raise just over $40,000.00 for Gulf Aid Acadiana. We appreciate you!

And here's another way to support our efforts: "Le Grand Gosier" and "Le Pélican" are now available on iTunes. Proceeds from the sales of these two songs benefit Gulf Aid Acadiana.

At the Festival en Chanson in Petite Vallée, Québec in July 2010, two Louisiana songwriters, unbeknownst to one another, composed songs inspired by the brown pelican. The pelican is a powerful symbol for the people of Louisiana and its story resonates deeply in the Bayou State.

On his voyage of exploration in 1699, Iberville noted the numerous colonies of these coastal birds. In 1812, Louisiana became the 18th state of the United States and the state flag bears the image of a pelican feeding its young. In 1966, the brown pelican was declared the official state bird, but in that year the pelican had disappeared from the coast. Estimated at over 50,000 birds at the beginning of the 20th century, the pesticide DDT decimated the pelican colonies in the 1950s, and by 1963, not a single bird could be found along the Louisiana coast.

In 1968, the brown pelican was re-introduced. Fledglings from Florida were installed at three locations: Queen Bess, Île du Nord (North Island) and Île aux Pitres. The program was a success. By 2008, the population was evaluated at over 14,000 breeding pairs and in 2009, the brown pelican was removed from the list of endangered species.

The catastrophe of the Deepwater Horizon has been a terrible ordeal for the communities of Southeastern Louisiana. The oil spill has inflicted a horrific toll on the sea birds, aquatic mammals and fish as well as fishermen and their families. Gulf Aid Acadiana is working to restore the coast and help all of its residents recover from this environmental tragedy. 

Grand Gosier can best be translated as: Big Gullet. This is the name given to the Brown Pelican in the Cajun French of the coastal parishes of Louisiana. This song was written and is interpreted by francophone authors whose communal origins are symbolic of the diversity of ethnic French experience in North America.  

The music and the initial compostion are the creation of Rocky McKeon. Rocky is from Cocodrie, Louisiana where Bayou Petit Caillou enters the Gulf. This community is at ground-zero of Coastal Erosion and is also one of the areas most impacted by the oil spill of 2010.  

The co-authors are Ricardo Lamour alias Emrical and Samian Anishinabe. Emrical is of the Haitian community of Montreal. Samian is Native-American of Algonguin heritage.

Of particular interest is the fact that Grand Gosier is not only the Lousiana French name of the Brown Pelican, but also the name of a village in the Southeastern Haiti. The lyrics in Créole (Kreyòl Ayisyen) make reference not only to the oil spill of but also to the earthquake of January 2010. English translations of the lyrics are available at zacharyrichard.com.

In other news, on Monday, July 26, 2010, Zachary Richard and Valerie Billeaud Gonsoulin of Gulf Aid Acadiana visited with Rebecca Templeton of Bayou Grace in Chauvin to show support and make our second financial contribution to their organization. We share a common mission, and are working together to restore our coast, in the short term by helping the members of our fishing communities get through these dark days. 

Although no actual statistics are available, together we estimate that as many as 80% of Louisiana's coastal fishermen are currently without income, while the remainder are employed by BP in the cleanup. It is very disturbing to see the effects of the oil spill in real terms: loss of revenue, loss of hope, confusion. We are very inspired by Rebecca and Bayou Grace’s committment to our communities, and we intend to do as much as we can to help the people of Bayou Petit Caillou and all the residents of our coastal parishes as we all continue to come to grips with this very difficult situation.

À la suite de la catastrophe Deepwater Horizon, nous venons de créer la fondation Gulf Aid Acadiana dans l’espoir de venir en aide aux communautés sinistrées. Merci de la visite. Merci d'explorer notre site. Merci pour votre soutien.