NEW ORLEANS — The Community Book Center, a longtime fixture on Bayou Road in the city's Esplanade Ridge neighborhood, was one of the numerous small-business casualties of Hurricane Katrina. The storm ravaged the venture that Vera Warren-Williams had nurtured for 25 years, where she sold African American novels, school reading texts, gifts and artwork.
The building's windows blew out, the roof was ripped and at least 2 feet of water sat inside for several days, resulting in about $250,000 worth of structural damage and loss of inventory.
The owner's insurance wasn't nearly enough to cover the damage, and she didn't have flood coverage.
"You know you have to come back," Warren-Williams said. "But when you looked at the devastation, you weren't quite sure how."
Help arrived this week in the form of a group of Stanford University MBA students, and their ideas have given her hope.
With the assistance of the Idea Village, a nonprofit that has provided scores of local businesses with technical support, contacts and capital, the students -- 15 in all -- have adopted several enterprises, among them the Community Book Center. Their mission is to show the businesses ways to grow and sustain in post-Katrina New Orleans.
The storm destroyed or financially hurt more than 80% of the 12,695 small businesses that were in Orleans Parish before Katrina, local business officials said. The few that have reopened are struggling to stay afloat with fewer customers, reduced profits and higher labor costs.
The Stanford students think they can use their college training to help the small-business owners maximize their potential in the face of post-storm challenges.
"Education is what you learn in the classroom," said Daryn Dodson, 27, who organized the student group. "It doesn't mean anything until you apply it practically."
Dodson began his master's of business administration program the week Katrina battered New Orleans. As he sat in his dorm room, watching the disaster unfold on television, he felt compelled to do something.
He started fundraising drives, including a "gumbo get-together," where he and fellow students raised about $7,000 and donated it to Habitat for Humanity.
"We sent the check, but it felt so empty," Dodson recalled.
In December 2005, during winter break, the Washington, D.C., native took his first trip to New Orleans, visiting relief organizations, surveying the ruins and determining what assistance was needed.
