Take Houston-born artist, Mel Chin, for example. According to his online biography, he is a classically trained artist who likes to produce art in the least likely of places. He also tries to create works or movements that "can provoke greater social awareness and responsibility." His current project, Fundred, is doing exactly that all over the country, and it's got New Orleans at its heart.

Most major American cities have a problem with lead in the soil, a toxic contaminant left behind from the days of lead paint and and gasoline. It has been estimated that 86,000 New Orleans properties have unsafe levels of lead in the soil, and at least 30% of the inner population is affected by lead poisoning, which is related to cases of ADHD and various adult-onset diseases. A company named Operation Paydirt has come up with a method  to trap the lead in stable mineral formations, but they estimated the cost to "treat" New Orleans at $300,000,000.

Enter Chin's Fundred project, in which he symbolically fundraises all of the money required for the project by traveling the country and getting people to draw their own "fundred" dollar bills. Basically, students, teachers and groups all over the country have been downloading the money template online (you can do it, too!), designing them however they want to, and mailing them off to a collection center in their neck of the woods. The fundreds will be held there until Chin himself comes around in his vegetable-oil-powered armored truck, named Sous Terre (an homage to our French culture that translates into 'under ground'). 

All of the fundreds collected in New Orleans will be kept at Safehouse, a house that has been transformed into a gigantic vault by the addition of a 10-foot-diameter, fully operating bank vault door. It even comes complete with a rotary combination lock. Safehouse is open for public tours from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, if you'd like to see  the spectacle first hand.

Chin just picked up his first set of fundreds this morning, from Ben Franklin Elementary. He will be doing pickups along the Gulf Coast all the way from now until January, and then he will take Sous Terre on the road across the country, making stops at all the collection centers along the way.

Chin will reach his ultimate destination in spring of next year: Capitol Hill. He will deliver them to Congress and ask for an even exchange of his fundreds for $300,000,000 to clean up the soil under our city.

To send Chin off in style, there will be a fundraising party TONIGHT! It all starts with a 5 p.m. free second line on the Canal Street ferry. Follow the music and dancing to Mardi Gras World West, where there will be a free kids program until 7 p.m. and a benefit concert afterwards until they can't play anymore.

Tickets to the concert are $10 and will get you a show from some Mardi Gras Indians, John "Papa" Gros, Future Blondes, Anais St. John, Tony Oulabula Bazley & His Band and more. Let's send new local hero Mel Chin off with a bang!

Click here to listen to an article about Mel Chin and his Fundreds that was on WWOZ this morning.