NEW ORLEANS (December 18, 2008) – Today Leonard Riggio, the Chairman of Barnes & Noble, and his wife Louise, will for the first time meet the twenty Hurricane Katrina survivor families to whom they are personally giving the gift of a new home.  Just in time for the holidays, the New York-based couple is making it possible for the families to move back home to their previously devastated Gentilly neighborhood located at the 4300th block of St. Bernard Avenue.  In February of this year, the Riggios announced their creation of “Project Home Again,” an effort to bring back families displaced since Hurricane Katrina to their neighborhoods, and broke ground for the construction of the twenty homes.

“The focus of Project Home Again has always been about families and neighborhood,” said Mr. Riggio.  “My wife and I couldn’t receive a better gift ourselves this holiday than to see these twenty families coming home to their neighborhood where they belong.  We are pleased to support something so important —the sense of community in New Orleans.”

The twenty families from Project Home Again will see their newly constructed homes for the first time, as well as meet the Riggios in person at a reception and ribbon cutting ceremony beginning at 3:00 p.m. at 4313 St. Bernard Avenue in Gentilly.

David Briant, a single father of two who has been sleeping on his sister-in-law’s sofa with his young son since Katrina, says that the work the Riggios and Project Home Again are doing is different than what anyone else has tried to do in New Orleans.  “The Riggios are reaching out to help working families, people who had homes before Katrina and were trying to take care of their families,” said Mr. Briant. 

Briant said that post-Katrina was traumatic and devastating for him and his children.  “It was such a struggle trying to get any help.  For two years I lived in Texas trying to find work and couldn’t.  There are no words for what it means to be back home again in New Orleans and getting the gift of a new home for me and my sons means everything to me.”

No one is more grateful to be receiving a home than Lynette Jordana.  The single mother of three evacuated to Texas following Katrina.  Over the course of the last three years she and her 17-year old daughter, Alana, 13-year old son, Dwan, and 5-year old son, Justin, have lived in Texas, Alabama and Atlanta.  “I have never given up the hope of moving back home to Gentilly,” said Ms. Jordana.  “My kids and I will always be grateful to the Riggios and Project Home Again for giving us the generous gift of a home.”

Editor’s Note: A complete list of beneficiary families and backgrounders is available upon request. 

Media are invited to attend the event at 2:30 p.m. for one-on-one interviews with Len, Louise, representatives from the 20 families and to shoot footage of the homes.