The Li’l Brooklyn Neighborhood Initiative is holding a painting and revitalization day on Friday for residents and volunteers to paint houses of elderly residents on Rosier Street.

Members of the Kiwanis Club of New Iberia will be among volunteers working alongside neighborhood residents to help paint the houses.

The homes will be painted in Caribbean color schemes to harmonize with and unify the neighborhood.

Other curb appeal projects include brightly colored flower planters designed and constructed by industrial arts students at New Iberia Senior High, painting porch chairs with colorful pattersn; and waterning a newly installed citrus orchard.

The Li’l Brooklyn neighborhood was originally part of the Duperier Plantation, later Mount Carmel, and is the oldest historically Black neighborhood in New Iberia.

In the early 1900s it was the home of the Gus Fontenot Banner Band and Orchestra, which was instrumental in the early jazz movement. Notable jazz musician Bunk Johnson played with the band for several years.

The neighborhood at one time was called Freetown before recently taking on the name Li’l Brooklyn after a resident visited Brooklyn and said the neighborhood reminded him of all the bridges surrounding the New York borough.

The neighborhood initiative is a non-profit formed by residents to reclaim a distressed neighborhood by revitalizing the area, attracting families and promoting home ownership.