Since our last update, Team MIBrary has made tremendous progress. We have an official location: the Downtown Lafayette Public Library! Our launch date is forthcoming, but we anticipate late spring or early summer 2018.
To date, Team MIBrary has collected 2 fiddles, 2 guitar amps, 1 classical guitar, 2 acoustic guitars, 5 electric guitars, 1 lap steel guitar, 3 keyboards, and 1 snare drum all through donations. We’ve learned a better approach to receiving donations: ask people directly! Our instrument drive posted in our last update did not go so well, but when we asked our personal friends and family, people really stepped up and donated many instruments!
We have not used any of the funds from the 24 Hour Citizen Project yet, but should we not be able to obtain electronic drum kits or accordions through donations, we will purchase these. We are also going to communicate with other libraries who lend out musical instruments to have a better idea of if we should set aside funds for maintenance and repair of the instruments.
We are extremely excited to see the project come to fruition. We are hopeful that our next update will include our launch date–or perhaps details from it already being launched!
I am pleased to present this update for Pop-Up Kids Theater, a theatrical program for at-risk children ages 6-12 in the Lafayette area. The Facebook page is created, published and now active under the name PopUp Kids Theater. After some consideration, I decided to table the website for now and just concentrate on social media outlets such as Facebook and Instagram.
We will have forms available for Media Permission from all children that will be represented in the project. The AOC team will be video-taping some of the shows for TV viewing.
I have been in negotiations with Melissa Dalcour from Girard Park. Our original plan was to utilize Girard Park as a starting place for the project. After discussion with the park, the cost of a room for one morning from 9am-12pm would be $400 (which is at a discounted rate). I have decided that is way too much money for our budget right now.
That said, I decided to explore other options. I met with Kristine Newman, a founder of New Hope Development Center of Acadiana (http://newhopelafayette.org/ )on January 19, 2018. Along with her husband John, they have created a tutoring center for at risk children. They also have a summer program beginning in June for 6 weeks. After touring the Center and meeting with Kristine, I have decided to introduce the PopUp Kids Theater to the summer program starting this June 2018. We will meet every Friday from 9am-12pm as part of their summer program. This is a good fit for our project and the New Hope Center. This will keep our cost down and be able to concentrate on the project itself, bringing the arts to kids! We are excited about this partnership and I think this will help with both of our successes.
Huge thanks to Butch Roussel for the introduction to New Hope! I continue to be in contact with the volunteers and plan a meeting in early March to discuss our progress. If you have any questions or suggestions please feel free to reach out through our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Popupkidstheater/.
The Acadian Rain Garden Team is growing more and more every day (please excuse the pun, we’re just a bunch of nerds). Since our last update, our team has made major leaps and bounds in regard to designing our gardens.
We’ve been meeting on a bi-monthly basis. We’ve connected with Dr. Emad Habib (UL Lafayette Civil Engineering), an expert in hydrology, to discuss our local watershed. He and his graduate students provided us with an excellent GIS map of the Vermilion watershed. We plan to use this in our educational materials, to help people connect with their placement in the greater ecosystem. We’ve created a first draft of our educational signage and look forward to refining it with a graphic artist.
As a bunch of plant lovers ourselves, we finalized a list of native plant species that meet the desired qualities of our rain garden plants. These species are 1) native, 2) possess deep penetrating root systems to help absorb water, 3) provide aboveground structure to help filter debris from flood waters, 4) flood-tolerant and drought-tolerant, 5) aesthetically pleasing, and 6) provide ecological value and services.
In November 2017, team member John Oliver, AKA our resident landscape architect, led a charette. Together, his group collaboratively designed a first draft for the garden at Girard Park and the fountain site at city hall. In January 2018, John and the rest of our team refined that draft by determining which species of plants would be most suitable and by conducting a field survey of the site. We measured and marked our site, conducted a soil-water penetration test to determine the ability of the existing soil to absorb water, and measured elevation at the site. John return to the original sketch and refined it with our new additions. We have since sent this updated draft of our rain garden to the Parks and Rec department and look forward to their comments.
We still hope to break ground on this project by Spring 2018. In the coming months, we will be finalizing our designs, educational materials, ordering plants, and locating a source for soil and compost.
Mardi Gras is almost upon us, which means Krewe de Canailles is about to pop off. We’ve made a ton of new headway since the last update. We still haven’t received our 501(c)7 status approval so we’ve reach out to TRAIL to act as our fiscal agents. We’ve added a new board member with Paige Casselman Beyt, secured our permits and are ready to march!
We were also featured in another KATC story – this time with no name misspells! It can be seen here – http://www.katc.com/story/37211172/walking-krewe-to-start-new-mardi-gras-traditions-in-lafayette.
Lastly, we’ve secured the New Natives brass band and Lost Bayou Ramblers to play the afterparty at Warehouse 535, both of which will also be marching in the parade. Everything is shaping up for Krewe de Canailles to be a permanent Lafayette Mardi Gras fixture.
Until the march is over,
Rodney Hess (Team Leader)
The 24 Hour Citizen Project (24HCP) Team is always learning, always growing, and never excited to see a project’s community impact halted for any reason. But, we also believe in being as honest and transparent as possible, and we know that not all projects are going to be forever. This doesn’t make them a bad idea or a failure; instead, they serve as a lesson for future teams (and for ourselves) that will drive us to work harder and do better for the communities we’re involved in. One such project is Adrian Perron’s Recovery Garden, which recently had to permanently cease operations.
The Perfect Project Idea
Adrian had a dream during the 2016 24HCP. He believed that growing a garden was not only a way to feed the hungry, but could also act as a form of therapy for individuals suffering from addiction. Working in partnership with Catholic Services of Acadiana and the LSU Ag Center, his “Recovery Garden” project would build a community garden near St. Joseph’s Diner that could help to sustain the homeless shelters’ mission of feeding the hungry with fresh produce while working to beautify an area that had, for a long time, been neglected by the community. The 24HCP felt Adrian’s idea perfectly paired with our own mission. It was a win from all sides: The Recovery Garden wasn’t just beautification or a subtle improvement of something the city needed, it was a real work of true, civic good.
“The project was unique, and its therapeutic element made it something memorable and necessary within our city,” states Butch Roussel, founder of the 24HCP. “It was something our backers knew would serve Acadiana well.”
Growing a Garden for Good
In 2012, Catholic Services of Acadiana had previously attempted to build a sustainable garden in partnership with the Lafayette Sheriff’s Office. That project had fallen prey to growing security concerns that far overshadowed its yield of fresh produce for nearby St. Joseph’s Diner, a part of Catholic Services that works to serve the homeless with hot meals and a place to rest 364 days a year. Adrian’s project would pick up where Catholic Services had left off while simultaneously offering a therapeutic project for clients of the Acadiana Recovery Center. The project was successfully marked as completed in the spring of 2017 and, for a time, it had a real impact on the diner’s mission.
Ben Broussard, Catholic Services’ director of external affairs, says that Adrian’s project helped to beautify the neighborhood and create some goodwill between the diner and the community. “There was a positive impact for several months in terms of fresh produce for St. Joseph’s Diner and it gave new access for stakeholders to be engaged in the work we do,” adds Ben. “We’ve always pushed to heighten the community aspect of local volunteerism and involvement. This project was a great example of that.”
Even Great Projects Fail
Eventually, Adrian’s project began to fall prey to many of the same issues that the garden had experienced in its former form. Maintaining the space had a number of security concerns associated with it that began to turn the project into a risk for Catholic Services’ campus and the surrounding community. What had started as something good quickly began to have a negative effect on the neighborhood and, at the end of 2017, Catholic Services was encouraged to bulldoze the garden and shutter Adrian’s project permanently.
While we hate to see the Recovery Garden’s impact fail for reasons outside of our control, the project served as a learning example to future teams and the 24HCP Selection Committee. Lastly, we couldn’t be more proud of Adrian and his team for the hard work and dedication they put into making the garden a reality.
