Bayou Business Monthly – January 2021
December 27, 2020
Brook Guidry
December 28, 2020
The first phase of construction has begun for the South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center’s (SLWDC) campus.
“We’re ecstatic,” said Jonathan Foret, Executive Director of SLWDC. “We’ve been working so long to try to get this project off the ground. We’ve had our plans derailed a few different times with trying to get different funding mechanisms to work out, but we’re finally here.”
An idea that Foret said can be traced back to about 20 years ago, the plan for the 27,000-square-foot facility, which is near the Terrebonne Parish Library System’s main branch in Houma, includes a partially sheltered amphitheater, wetlands nature exhibit and three educational buildings, according to SLWDC’s website.
Phase one includes the wetlands nature exhibit as well as an outdoor pavilion, storage area and bathrooms. Foret said the first phase is expected to completed by April 2021.
SLWDC, a nonprofit that aims to revolutionize the way people think, teach and learn about Louisiana’s disappearing coast, currently works out of its temporary office at the Bayou Terrebonne Waterlife Museum, which the organization holds a summer camp and school tours at as well.
“We still plan on doing those things, but now we’ll have a second site where we could do other activities,” Foret said. “This is going to enable us to have a remote site where we can bring our students outside and do things like water quality tests, talk about invasive species and native plants and show them which native plants we have growing in the exhibit.”
For the funds to build phase one, Foret said, the organization is using state capital outlay money. To access those funds, he said, SLWDC had to put up a 25 percent cash match.
A significant portion of the money was raised through the Rougarou Fest, the annual popular festival that SLWDC hosts in downtown Houma. In 2019, the event made a net profit of $103,538.39.
“I think an important thing to note is that the pavilion and the wetlands exhibit will be created through the efforts of a couple hundred volunteers that it takes to put the festival on,” Foret said. “I just want to give gratitude to all of those people who work and make the festival come to life each year, our sponsors and the other people who donated to the capital campaign. Because without them and their efforts, we would not have been able to have broken ground this year.”
More information on the South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center can be found at https://slwdc.org
