NEW ORLEANS — Most people in New Orleans take pride in where they’re from — they represent their neighborhood and their alma mater proudly.
One local woman is no different: Brenda Lomax-Brown fights hard to make her blighted neighborhood better than ever. She sows the seed, literally, and is helping others do the same.
A drive through the Hollygrove-Dixon neighborhood shows boarded up homes, large potholes and on one street what remains of a burned down house.
What you don’t see at that first glance are people like Lomax-Brown.
"She fights; she’s a fighter,” said local pastor Mary Scott, the vice president of the Hollygrove-Dixon Neighborhood Association.
'Miss Brenda,' as Lomax-Brown is known, started off by fighting blight in the neighborhood. Two years ago, however, she took on more responsibilities, becoming the president of the Hollygrove-Dixon neighborhood association.
“Because there’s a need, because we are so great. We are this diamond in the rough, but I can see the beauty of it, I can see what we can become,” Lomax-Brown said.
The 73-year-old is working hard to see her neighborhood become everything she envisions. Literally planting a seed and watching it grow: Starting a community garden and a children's garden.
That being said, this homegrown woman is not just the keeper of the garden. She organizes to provide families with food baskets on holidays, adopt a child for Christmas and keep the area safe with a night out against crime:
With all hands on deck she organizes book giveaways, school supply drives and prayer walks. Whatever can make the neighborhood improve, she makes it happen.
Miss Brenda works hard to better the lives of her neighbors because as she says — you bloom where you’re planted.
"Miss Brenda is a beautiful person and she works very hard. I can’t think of all she’s done but she’s done a lot for the neighborhood," homeowner Ralph Lagrue said.
"Miss Brenda is a jewel. She is a jewel. She goes the extra mile," Scott said.
That's the case for the elderly as well as children.
“Everything that I do is for the children because we have to make it a better place for them to come up in. we don’t want them to have to hit the floor when they hear gunshots so everything that I do is for our future,” Lomax-Brown said.
She is also trying to get rid of abandoned houses and convert a vacant lot into a playground.
Miss Brenda uses more than just her green thumb to help the community. She’s the keeper of this neighborhood — and that makes her one of Eyewitness News' Neighborhood Heroes.