The board of the non-profit purchased a 1960s-era hospital in Arnaudville in 2019, but after funding and renovation issues will sell the building.
Mavis Arnaud Frugé at the campus of Saint Luc in Arnaudville, Louisiana. Will McGrew/Télé-Louisiane
By Jonathan Olivier
The board of the Saint Luc French Immersion Campus and Cultural Center, located in Arnaudville, announced on Sept. 17 the project will be terminated and the building will be sold.
Saint Luc, a non-profit organization, purchased the St. Luke General Hospital building in November 2019 in the hopes of renovating it to host French immersion courses. After obtaining the building, which was built in 1967 and sat vacant since 1990, officials with Saint Luc raised money and replaced the aged roof, and began cleaning the inside of the building. Over the years, Mavis Arnaud Frugé, the project’s founder, enlisted the help of volunteers to host workshops and classes.
Despite this progress, it became increasingly clear that large capital costs to bring the building up to standard would be insurmountable for the small community organization. The board will now have the building appraised, and after the sale it will refund investors.
Frugé, the former board president of Saint Luc, worked tirelessly to bring the project to life in her small hometown. Her idea to create the Saint Luc program started as a five-day French immersion session in 2005, which was hosted at the NUNU Art and Culture Collective in Arnaudville by former Louisiana French professor at Louisiana State University Amanda LaFleur. Along with LaFleur, Frugé helped coordinate immersive outings with local francophones, activities that included catching crawfish or kayaking. The program came to be known as “Sur Les Deux Bayous,” paying homage to Arnaudville as the confluence of bayous Teche and Fuselier.
The Saint Luc board purchased the vacant St. Luke General Hospital building in November 2019. Jonathan Olivier/Télé-Louisiane
Eventually, other universities caught wind of the project and were interested—Frugé and NUNU volunteers began hosting immersion sessions for students from across the country.
“I met some wonderful people over the years with this project,” Frugé said. “With our pilot program, we brought many students and schools to Arnaudville that came to learn French and learn about our culture.”
In 2008, Frugé and NUNU founder George Marks hatched a plan to purchase the vacant St. Luke General Hospital building and turn it into a first-of-its-kind French immersion program, building upon what they had already established, and looking to the structure at Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia, Canada, for inspiration.
LaFleur, who most recently served as the Saint Luc board president, said the project was never about a building, but rather a community with Frugé at its core.
“Those who have participated in the activities organized by Mavis and her army of volunteers—French tables, immersion programs, workshops, language and craft classes, cultural gatherings, card nights and poetry evenings—form a community dedicated to this cause,” she said. “Mavis, with her enthusiasm and generosity, invited us all to see the jewel that is French Louisiana from a new perspective. And it's clear from the large number of people who return to Arnaudville again and again that this project is a success.”