After the Bermuda Red Cross realised that the US Red Cross was no longer accepting donations for Hurricane Katrina relief, they got creative and found an original way to help New Orleans.

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band?s visit to Island during the Bermuda Festival gave the local Red Cross just that opportunity ? and the band left with $10,000 in funds to help to get New Orleans? famous musicians back on their feet.

Bermuda Red Cross president Ann Spencer-Arscott explained that some money raised in Bermuda for Hurricane Katrina could not be forwarded to the US Red Cross because it reached its goal of $2.11 billion.

But when the the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, arrived, she said she learned it was raising funds for the New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund.

The fund?s website, www.nomhrf.org, states that whole neighbourhoods in New Orleans remain silent of their once vibrant jazz because instruments were destroyed ? along with everything else ? during the hurricane.

The band?s home venue, Preservation Hall in the French Quarter, also remains silent because it was wrecked during the hurricane.

During the Band?s February 24 performance the Bermuda Red Cross donated $10,000 and a saxophone to the band for their fellow musicians in New Orleans.