NEW ORLEANS — Saints quarterback Drew Brees is the icon of a city in which citizens wear the fleur-de-lis on their rolled-up sleeves to symbolize pride in their team and faith in the renaissance from Hurricane Katrina.

To the students of Lusher Charter School, he is a walking monument to the power of philanthropy and hope for a hospitable but long-suffering sports town that desperately wants to crown its own winner.

Two days before the NFC championship showdown between the Saints and Minnesota Vikings at the Superdome, Brees' No. 9 jerseys easily outnumbered the black-and-gold gear worn by hundreds of students and faculty Friday at the exclusive campus in Uptown.

The comprehensive-arts middle and high school has a soft spot for a Saint so popular in the city that bumper stickers proclaim this "Drew Orleans."

Brees and his wife, Brittany, both unabashed ambassadors for the Crescent City, have donated $450,000 through his charitable foundation to help refurbish the storm-ravaged schoolhouse and football field.

More than a drive-by sports star throwing money at blight, Brees regularly makes unannounced visits to Lusher. He checks in on the projects he is funding, such as the $50,000 weight room he designed.

He delivered the 2009 commencement address to the so-called "Katrina Class." And the school's multiple orchestras and dance teams feted the couple in October when they christened the new gridiron — the Brees Family Field.

"When you meet Drew, you just know how he really cares for the students here," said Margaret deVeer, Lusher's student council vice president.

The 11th-grader shares a tale familiar to many of the 1,560 K-12 students whose lives were upended when Katrina shredded the Gulf Coast in August 2005.

Displaced with her two siblings to live with her godmother outside Chicago while her parents tried to salvage their home, deVeer was unsure whether she would return to her birthplace — or if she even wanted to.

But deVeer fell hard for Brees and the Saints during their storybook run to the 2006 NFC championship game, which they lost to Chicago.

"I love the spirit of New Orleans. I love the city's passion," said deVeer, 16, decked out in Brees' white road jersey. "When I watched the Saints winning, that was like home for me. I saw my home again. Why wouldn't I want to come back?"

She enrolled at Lusher in January 2006, when the charter school inherited a dilapidated, 1939 public schoolhouse that required $950,000 in renovations.

What's more, it needed its dislocated teachers and staff, whom Katrina had scattered across the country, to come home.

In stepped the Rev. Michael O'Connell, then-pastor of the Basilica of St. Mary's in Minneapolis.

He is friends with Michael Cowan, a St. Paul native who is married to Kathy Riedlinger, Lusher's chief executive officer. O'Connell's parishioners at the basilica and Ascension Church in North Minneapolis donated $50,000 to Lusher, which used the money to lure back five teachers.

"I knew how successful she was and was exceedingly distressed imagining what it meant to Kathy that she wouldn't be able to do what they ought to be doing," said O'Connell, now the rector at Ascension Church. "It gave me great satisfaction that I knew exactly where that money was going."

More than once, Riedlinger has shared her affection for the Saints quarterback with O'Connell.

"Nobody can kiss her on the left cheek because that is where Drew Brees kisses her," O'Connell said.

As for the conflicting loyalties Sunday's game presents, the Minnesota clergyman left no doubt where his allegiance lies.

"Tell Kathy I wore the fleur-de-lis last weekend rooting for the Saints, but unfortunately I lost it and will not be able to wear it this weekend," O'Connell said.

SLOW, STEADY REVIVAL

Katrina's aftermath is everywhere in the city, from the din of jackhammers and saws to the sea of construction barrels on highways and random destruction that still scars neighborhoods both posh and poor.

With each passing year and new demographic report, New Orleans shows signs of revival, particular in tourism, while remaking itself in the image of those who returned after the deluge.

In 2008, 7.6 million people visited the city, up from 7.1 million in 2007 and 3.7 million in 2006, according to the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Tourists spent more than $7.5 billion in 2008, more than double from 2006, yet still below the $9 billion average of pre-Katrina years.

In July, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated New Orleans' population had increased about 8 percent in the past year to 366,644 — still about 100,000 fewer residents than before the storm.

While New Orleans can reclaim its status as a premier national sports destination, with four national championships scheduled for the Superdome in 2012-13, the rebuilding is unrelenting.

Katrina destroyed or severely damaged more than half of the city's 200,000 housing units. A November report by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center estimated 29 percent of residential properties are vacant or blighted, the highest rate of any American city.

"We are still in a perception battle," said Mary Beth Romig, spokeswoman for the Convention and Visitors Bureau. "It's not as bad as two years ago, but there are still questions: Are we over this? Is the city back? What's New Orleans like?"

SYMBOLIC GAME

Katrina remains a powerful story line entering Sunday's game, with Brees serving as the recovering city's greatest ambassador.

The bond between quarterback and fan base is one of the strongest and most genuine in sports.

A former San Diego Charger, Brees signed with New Orleans in March 2006, barely six months after the hurricane crashed ashore. He chose the Saints over Miami for reasons greater than their six-year, $60 million contract offer.

At the time, the Saints were coming off a 3-13 season in which they were forced to play home games in Baton Rouge and San Antonio. The Superdome was a wreck. Talk swirled about owner Tom Benson moving the team. Overturned trucks and boats were piled on top of destroyed houses for miles.

"You just say, man, what happened here? It looks like a nuclear bomb went off," Brees told reporters this week. "I said this from the beginning, I felt like it was a calling.

"An opportunity to come here and not only being a part of the rebuilding of the organization and getting the team back to its winning ways, but to be part of the rebuilding of the city and the region. How many people get that opportunity in their life to be a part of something like that?"

It started with salvaging the Superdome, which had come to symbolize the horrors of Katrina and a city that literally drowned while the world watched.

More than 25,000 people escaped the hurricane's fury and massive flooding that ensued after the levees failed, only to walk into another disaster in the shelter of last resort.

Doug Thornton, vice president of the Superdome's management company, was there for five days of hell, when the power went out, the sewers backed up, food and water were rationed, Katrina's winds tore off 70 percent of the roof — and no one came to the rescue.

He directed humanitarian efforts from a heliport on the plaza. He carried a handgun for protection from agitated mobs of hungry and thirsty survivors unsure whether they were eating their final meals.

Ten people died in the dome, most from natural causes and drug overdoses. There was one suicide.

Thornton was the final person evacuated. As the chopper carried him out over his flooded city, he never expected to see the Superdome again.

"It was the poster child for misery and suffering during Katrina," Thornton recalled.

Debate raged over whether to raze the battered stadium that had hosted 26 seasons of Saints football, six Super Bowls, four Final Fours, two BCS championship games and the 1988 Republican National Convention.

In a city desperate for hope, Thornton led a public relations blitz to rebuild the Superdome not only to retain the Saints but as a symbol of renewal.

"The sooner we got that building back in commerce and turned this roof white again, people were going to believe that this recovery can happen," he said. "Because if you can rebuild a 2 million-square-foot building, there's hope for your neighborhood."

'THE CULMINATION'

On Sept. 25, 2006, 13 months after Katrina struck and after a $200 million renovation, the Saints marched back into the Superdome and defeated the Atlanta Falcons 23-3 on "Monday Night Football."

The tear-drenched homecoming set the bar high, though the energy level is expected to be off the charts for Sunday's NFC title game, New Orleans' first as the host city. The Saints, who joined the NFL in 1967, have never been to a Super Bowl.

"This is the biggest game in the history of the Superdome because our home team is hosting the championship," Thornton said. "That Monday night game will always be special. But Sunday will be totally different.

"It is the culmination of all the hard work and dedication of the people of New Orleans."