TAYE DIGGS - DIGGS BRINGS FESTIVE CHEER TO NEW ORLEANS

DIGGS BRINGS FESTIVE CHEER TO NEW ORLEANS

Actor TAYE DIGGS has been bringing Christmas cheer back to the devastated suburbs of New Orleans, Louisiana - with carol singing. The former Ally MCBeal star has been spending his down time from the writers' strike singing festive songs in the city's St. Bernard Parish, an area hit hard by 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Diggs joined a gospel choir and New Orleans singer Irma Thomas on Monday (17Dec07) in Violet, where many people are still living in trailers more than two years after Katrina flooded the town. He says, "It's quite eye-opening. As much as you hear on the news, it's completely different when you see it firsthand." He added he was impressed and moved by the "strength, the kind of tenacity, the strong sense of faith and hope that these people have."