You can tell a lot about people from the stuff they leave out in the street for others to pick up.

It comes and goes in waves: one person puts a couple of well-thumbed paperbacks on their front step, another follows suit with a broken laptop and a bag of Mardi Gras beads, and pretty soon everyone on the block has a little museum of unwanted objects on display. Then everything disappears, and a few weeks later the whole endless cycle begins again.

Last weekend, the guy living catty-corner from us moved out of his rented apartment, and left all his detritus for us vultures to pick over.

For several days, an ever-changing knot of people stood on the street corner, exchanging local gossip and discussing the relative merits of old copies of National Geographic, dusty pairs of shoes and glass ornaments.

Among the objects he left on the sidewalk was a collection of faded 1980s male porn magazines. That was snapped up pretty quickly, which was surprising since so many people get their thrills from a computer screen these days, but unsurprising in that at least half the inhabitants of the Marigny are gay.

Then a blow-up rubber female doll appeared hanging from the railings, only to disappear shortly afterwards, smuggled off under someone's arm to some sticky nocturnal tryst.

The neighbour left several days ago, taking the rest of his belongings with him. But then, yesterday afternoon, a couple strolled down the middle of the street carrying a coffin, slightly the worse for wear but still perfectly serviceable.

I was determined not to let my curiosity get the better of me, especially since I had visions of them opening the lid to reveal the decaying remains of some recently deceased relative. We chatted about this and that, but eventually I could no longer ignore the 600-pound gorilla in the room. "OK, what's with the coffin?" I asked.

"We found it lying on the sidewalk just up the street," the guy told me, kicking it open to reveal the neatly stitched cream-coloured lining. "We're going to take it home and use it as a dining-room table."

If coffins could speak, and thank God they can't, that one would have a long and interesting tale to tell.

Can I ask for two minutes of your time to help make New Orleans a better place?

Melissa Sawyer, who lives two doors down the street and is a good friend, used her Harvard education not to line her pockets but to make a difference to people less fortunate than herself.

She co-founded the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP), which provides case management, mentoring and educational services to at-risk young people in this desperate city. It's an uphill struggle, and sometimes a drug dealer's bullet gets there before Melissa does. She's the blonde woman on the right above, and her partner, Renell, on the far right, also works for the project.

YEP is dependent on grants and donations, and is currently applying to Nike for $5,000. This will be awarded to the entrant which receives the largest number of votes, which seems a slightly haphazard way of awarding grant money, but there you go.

Please go here to find out more about YEP and cast your vote, and thank you very much!