The Jambalaya Festival Association is constructing a new roughly $575,000 building on South Francois Avenue in Gonzales.
The building, measuring 64 feet by 75 feet, will serve as site for the association’s members to meet, store their equipment for events and have a fully functioning kitchen where piping hot pots of jambalaya can be cooked for events and nonprofits.
Wally Taillon, the association’s president, says the building will be the first the association has owned in 49 years.
“We never owned a building. We always had to rent a place or have someone donate a place,” Taillon says. He’s hoping construction will be finished by August so the members can move into it.
Currently, the association is renting five buildings to store its equipment, Taillon says. The Jambalaya Festival Association broke ground on the new building, located next to Kidz Kove Discovery Park, on April 13. Meredith Conger, the Jambalaya Festival board of directors’ secretary, says the building already is going vertical as steel beams are in place and siding will be installed soon.
The Jambalaya Festival Association’s members provide year-round food for nonprofits such as Relay for Life of Ascension Parish, the Boys Scouts, Dreams Come True and the Juvenile Diabetes Organization.
Taillon says the association has been saving up to construct a new building for the last five to six years.
“Since I’ve been president it was our goal to have a building on our own,” he says.
—Alexandria Burris
