Anna Mancuso Naquin
April 30, 2008
Edna Mae Westbrook Smith Guilfore
May 2, 2008
Tri-parish residents can tour private gardens in the Houma area on Saturday, May 17, and help raise money to build the new South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center. Five different homes will open their gardens for public viewing from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. to benefit the $9.5 million facility: 104 Oak Alley Drive, 4034 Louisiana Highway 311, 404 Apache Road, 410 Ardoyne Drive and 205 Ellendale Drive.
Tickets cost $20 and can be purchased at the Terrebonne Folklife Culture Center (317 Goode St.), Outside and In (500 Corporate Drive) and Southern Elegance (1427 St. Charles St.).
The Discovery Center will have interactive exhibits and a laboratory designed for kids and visitors. Teachers could reserve the laboratory’s equipment for their students to use.
The center’s foundation has signed an agreement with Terrebonne Parish to use a piece of land next to the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center to build the facility, said capital fund drive chairwoman Juana Woodard. The foundation can enter into a long-term lease with the parish if the foundation raises 25 percent of construction costs in five years, she said.
Although the foundation has not officially launched its capital fund campaign, the facility has received several hundred thousand dollars, including a $150,000 donation from the Houston-based Apache Oil Corporation, Woodard said.
