(New Orleans)—Loyola University New Orleans alumna, Amy Cyrex Sins, A’98, wrote a book that is part cookbook, part photo essay, and part message of hope. Sins was inspired to write her first cookbook, Ruby Slippers Cookbook: Life, Culture, Family and Food After Katrina, after the events of Hurricane Katrina ravaged her home in Lakeview and her city of New Orleans. The cookbook is named Ruby Slippers because during the events of Katrina, Sins wished she could just click her heels together and go home. Sins collected recipes from family, friends and local restaurants to create her book. A portion of the proceeds from the book are being donated to the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, a non-profit organization whose mission is the preservation, restoration, and responsible stewardship of the coastal wetlands, waters and barrier shorelines of coastal Louisiana. On Saturday, December 9, Sins presented the coalition with a check for $10,000.

“This is what a Loyola education is all about - using one's education productively, and in the service of others. Amy brings pride to our educational programs,” said Bob Thomas, Ph.D., Loyola Environmental Communications Chair and Interim Director of the School of Mass Communication.

It was Sins’ experience at Loyola that helped shape her passion for helping her fellow man. Sins credits Bob Thomas with instilling in her a desire to dedicate herself to protecting the environment of her native land in general, and the restoration of its coast specifically. She speaks of him as a “mentor” in the realm of environmental science, and he was the first person she called when she realized this thing that was evolving in her mind was coming to fruition. She wanted the money to go to a good cause that would benefit the people whose recipes were the seeds of the Ruby Slippers Cookbook in the first place.

Copies of Ruby Slippers Cookbook: Life, Culture, Family and Food After Katrina can be ordered through its website at www.rubyslippersnola.com/orderbooks.htm.

Loyola University New Orleans is a Jesuit-Catholic institution with a total student enrollment of 4,724 including 800 law students.