First a big thank you for all those who have donated. The hard work and efforts of Mr. David Williams in organizing a campain to collect funds for the repair of the Jefferson Davis Statue are paying off. Mr Williams is a member of the SCV, Albert Sidney Johnston Camp #67 Houston, Texas. Below is a letter he received from Mr. David Holcombe, Commander of the SCV camp in New Orleans. We are getting there but more of your generous donations are needed. If you would like to make a donation please send it to this address:
P.G.T. Beauregard Camp #130
c/o David G. Holcombe,
1st Lt. Com., LA. Div.,
2240 Timbers Drive, Harvey, LA. 77058-2228
David,
We have good news. We have about 1200.00 in hand but we also got an SCV member is Louisiana to donate his services to "soda blast" the statue. That is the same as another 1500.00-1800.00 donation in kind. The way the blast statues now to clean them without damaging them is an EPA certified method to take a commercial oil field type sand blasting machine and run baking soda through it. It cleans it completely without being abrasive and then you just rinse or blow it off. That is a big part of the Monumental Task Forces expense. UDC Chapters in our area have donated about 210.00 if ya'll are still matching them. It was 100.00 I believe from the R.E. Lee UDC Chapter and 100.00 from the Jefferson Davis Chapter, and 10.00 from the Captain Milton Stanhope Austin Chapter. We are getting some small donations from all over Georgia, Tennessee and Florida too. Monumental Task has about 2500.00 of their own to put on this project. We have a little over 1200.00 on hand with more coming in every week. If ya'll match the Texas UDC Chapters that's another 1200.00 approximately if you count the 1000.00 you already pledged and matching
the 210.00 from your local UDC. Some of the Foundation work has been donated also for free to Monumental Task. With the free services being donated for the foundation work and the blasting I think but I can't swear to it that another 1200.00 to 1600.00
will do the job and small donations are coming in weekly. We have not received anything from your camp yet but I know your pledge is as good as gold. If we can get the 1200.00 from ya'll in the next two weeks or so Monumental task says they can get started before on the job the end of
May. I hope you feel this is good news as I surely do.
Best Regards,
Dave Holcombe