Brad Pitt Is doing It. Spike Lee is doing it. Meryl Streep is doing it. Come next week, Robin Parry will do it.

Do what? And who?

Help New Orleans is what. And who? You don't know Meryl Streep?

Oh. Parry. She's the former Club Nostradamus booker and current World Café Live bar employee who created and organized the unique events Big Easy Sundays and Hands On New Orleans, which will debut upstairs at WCL Aug. 13 and 17, respectively. For those suffering disaster relief fatigue, these events are different due to the interactivity of their participants.

Parry had never been to New Orleans until she attended the city's Katrina-ravaged Jazz Fest. She was shocked by the devastation that remained and the hopelessness that seemed would never disappear. She was most consumed with the music and its community — the soul of Nola's aesthetic heritage.

"I wanted to go back and help one person paint over one of those horrible black X's on their house," says Parry. "But I don't even have the money for a flight!"

Rather than host just another benefit, she researched the organizations that had done as much and concluded that money already donated had done little to help the battered parish. Parry felt she had to create some form of continuing benefit that would keep giving and offer musicians dignity — not just charity.

"I started believing that the best people in the world to rebuild New Orleans are musicians and artists from all around the country," said Parry. Their usual transience also made them the people most suited to relocate to New Orleans. "That city needs population growth so badly. The problem is, most musicians are broke. Broke but full of passion and good will."

She wanted to create a grassroots program of ongoing charity and volunteerism to restore New Orleans, with the direct help of the national and local music communities. Meaning Parry and WCL would book New Orleans acts — from traditional brass bands to swampy rockers — on Big Easy Sundays with local artists (or national ones, heck) who'd donate their time and performances to raise money for various reconstruction endeavors through the city of New Orleans and the Tipitina Foundation. Hotels are scheduled to accommodate the Louisiana-based acts. Nola-esque menus will be prepared by native chef Chad Alfred. Abita Restoration Ale will donate money from brews purchased that Sunday.

"They'll interact — hopefully jam together," says Parry. "The local artist gets promotion. The New Orleans band gets an audience that would never have come out to see them, and we will use the event to promote an important cradle of musical and cultural heritage."

But Parry's Hands On New Orleans — one Thursday a month — is a little different. That means if you care, you're going to have to get your hands dirty. That's where the second part of the program kicks in. Because this event, done in coordination with the national branch of Hands On Network and its "Sweet Home New Orleans" fund, features locals playing together to raise money to send a monthly team of volunteers to help New Orleans musicians rebuild their houses and their lives. Most of the volunteers, hopes Parry, will come from those playing the showcases. While Parry is seeking to book local genre-specific showcases like "Folk to New Orleans" to "Goth to New Orleans," with all donations used to pay for travel and lodging expenses for the volunteers, three of the bands participating in the first event — Joshua Heard Park, The Stereotypes and Todd & the Great Unknown — are doing the volunteering themselves. Building. Feeding. Aiding.

Some musicians can barely lift drumsticks, let alone two-by-fours. What gives?

"That is one of the twists of this program — why it is more hands-on, intimate and interactive," says Parry. "With Hands On, local bands play to raise money to send themselves and a team of their fans to volunteer to build homes for the friends of the same musicians that come up to play for us. It's win-win all around."

Both events seek to inspire and call to action local music communities who've long been touched by the heritage of Nola and to support with a helping hand, not a handout.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)