Since Katrina, the Tipitina's Foundation's Instruments a Comin' program has been helping students obtain musical instruments and to learn to play them.
Music has also inspired many musicians to write songs about saving the wetlands in Louisiana, which would have helped protect New Orleans from Katrina by providing buffers between land and sea.
"We're losing wetlands the size of football fields every day," said Ms. Thomas. "If you lose New Orleans, you've lost America," she said.
Five-time Grammy winner and singer/songwriter, pianist and guitarist Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr, known as Dr. John also expressed his concern about the wetlands as well as his love for the city.
"Thirty years ago we had a plan to build new wetlands," he said, "but corruption in the state made the money go elsewhere."
As a boy growing up in the bayou where people lived with the land, Dr. John learned how to hunt, fish and trap. However, 50 years later most of these wetlands are gone.
He performed his song, "Please Save Our Wetlands" on piano for conference attendees.
Dr. John now lives in New York but he retains the reputation not only as ambassador of New Orleans but as its social critic through his music.
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