NEW ORLEANS – Temporary markets with fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and seafood are giving residents in parts of the city recovering from Hurricane Katrina better food and community gathering places.

BILL HABER/The Associated Press

Wesley Hall purchases tomatoes from farmers market manager Jenga Mwendo (right) as Chris Benton looks on. Once a week, this temporary market opens for residents in the Lower Ninth Ward.

For residents of the Lower Ninth Ward, it's a place to stop and chat in an area where neighbors have been slow to return.

They talk about food, their families, the rebuilding of their homes and how frustrating life after Katrina can be.

"It's a big inconvenience to not have a grocery store or a drug store," said Vibiana Thomas, who walked from church to the nearby market in the parking lot of a derelict KFC/Long John Silver's restaurant. "These markets are wonderful. It's a big help."

Ms. Thomas is living in nearby St. Bernard Parish while renovating her home in the Lower Ninth, which flooded when levees broke during the August 2005 storm.

"We hope to expand," said Jenga Mwendo, a Lower Ninth Ward resident who helps run the market and finds sellers.

City officials launched the temporary markets recently using $120,000 in Community Development Block Grants designated for hurricane recovery. Their operations are coordinated by the French Market Corp., which manages the city's more than 200-year-old open-air market in the French Quarter.

One day a week for several hours, the five markets open in hard-hit neighborhoods such as eastern New Orleans, Lakeview and the Lower Ninth.

"This is all about the community," Ms. Mwendo said. "It even feels like a community because it's in the perfect place."

The markets will be open in many neighborhoods at least through August.

The Associated Press