Team Leader: Blair Begnaud Funded Date: November 9, 2024 Amount: $5,000 Location: Lafayette, LA
Progress
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Project Description
Lafayette’s quality of life studies, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure studies, and community anecdotes, indicate a lack of viable cycling infrastructure, particularly end-of-trip bicycle parking in Lafayette. Lafayette isn’t a fully safe, walkable, or bikeable city yet, but cyclists are still here and are in need of support and we believe that community-driven efforts can make substantial progress toward creating a safe haven for cyclists. Many end-of-trip destinations like schools, parks, grocery stores, and local businesses lack bicycle parking. Installing bicycle parking that doubles as art murals on private and public property at end-of-trip destinations is a step in the right direction to expand bicycle infrastructure, inspire citizens and businesses to embrace cycling, support local artists, and boost overall ridership in Lafayette.
Phase I of this project seeks to utilize 24-Hour Citizen Project funds to purchase and strategically place Bicycle Rack Art Murals at two key locations—northside and downtown—where cyclists are already present, and bicycle parking is in demand. These bicycle racks, shaped like bicycles and capable of holding 2-4 bikes, will be painted by local artists through a community art competition. Designed to be replicated, these Bicycle Rack Art Murals will become community art installations that businesses will want on their properties, similar to the popular Pelicans on Parade project. This colorful initiative encourages local businesses to invest in bicycle parking, show their support as bike-friendly establishments, and add vibrant local art to our community.
Phase II includes a 5-year plan to place 10 Bicycle Rack Art Murals in Lafayette by partnering with local businesses who will sponsor and adopt a Bicycle Rack Art Mural for the front of their business. Through the success of Phase I, we aim to generate public excitement around the bike racks, motivating more businesses to join the movement by sponsoring their own custom-painted racks. Bicycle Rack Art Murals can include it’s sponsors’ logos and feature fun local designs from local artists facilitated through a Community Art Competition. Before a public Community Art Competition, a Call for Artists would go out internally to the Sponsor’s Business employees first to allow creative employees a chance to design a winning design and paint their company’s bike rack. This approach fosters a sense of ownership for the sponsoring business, encouraging the business to take pride in maintaining these painted bike racks and ensuring their long-term care. The Bicycle Rack Art Mural Initiative has the potential to spark broader interest in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in Lafayette. Cities that have invested in quality bike and pedestrian infrastructure consistently report improved quality of life, increased happiness, enhanced safety, economic growth, higher property values, and better overall community health. Installing bicycle parking will increase non-motorized access to essential services such as healthcare, education, food, and goods, fostering a healthier, more connected community. The Bicycle Rack Art Mural Initiative is a small-scale community intervention with the potential for a big impact, to transform Lafayette into a more vibrant and colorful bike-friendly community.
It is widely known that the process of making art is beneficial for children and adults alike, with research going back decades supporting its use for personal healing and growth, reducing stress, decreasing anxiety and depression, and to process grief (Bhattacharyya et al., 2023). Art is a means of practicing and feeling empathy, which can lead to prosocial behavior change. Additionally, there is ample research linking participation in the arts to improved cognitive development through the fostering of abstract thinking and right-brain/left-brain integration (Boaz & Bat-Or, 2022). Data also supports that art making increases general well-being in diverse populations (Rosa, 2021). Lastly, and as if we needed research to tell us this, making art feels good (Moon, 2016).
Lafayette has a rich art culture that beckons community members to engage in their own self-expression–we want to aid in that endeavor by putting supplies into the hands of folks who may not otherwise have the time, money or opportunity to do so. We believe all members of our community deserve the chance to express themselves artistically. This project is for artists, by artists. Lafayette is an art desert when it comes to art supplies. If a community member wishes to engage in any art they are relegated to shopping at Michaels, Hobby Lobby, or JoAnns which are coincidentally located within a block of one another off of Ambassador Caffery. Because Lafayette is not a walkable city, folks who do not live in close proximity to these stores are unable to access supplies necessary for creative hobbies.
We would like to solve this issue by creating mini art libraries that offer supplies to people interested in getting artsy. We consider this mutual art aid—anyone who has an overabundance of art supplies would be invited and encouraged to share said supplies they are no longer using or may have purchased in bulk and have used what they need for their own crafts. People who have moved on from one artistic hobby to another could donate tools they are no longer using or have lost interest in (e.g., paint brushes, knitting needles, etc). The art closet would be a low-risk, high-reward opportunity for folks who have toyed around with an artistic style but felt overwhelmed at the prospect of purchasing all the supplies necessary.
Project Details
Team Leader: Whitney Storey Funded Date: November 11, 2023 Amount: $2,000 Location: Lafayette, LA
Dear Community - What a whirlwind the past few months have been - and not necessarily in a good way, unfortunately. As a group, we have really been learning about what it is to lead community work that gets people excited but it is hard to find folks offering a real...
Dear Community - Who knew that doing a project like this was going to be so people and relationship-centered? (Everyone but us probably knew it, but we finally caught up - ha!). Since we last wrote, we have been doing a lot people-ing. We had a great Build Bash with...
Dear Community - Wow, wow, wow - we just keep saying it and I don’t think we’ll stop saying it for a long time. We are so thankful for this experience so far and so looking forward to what is to come. From the very first idea exchange, it has been invigorating to see...
The Freetown Community Sound Lab wishes to document 45 field recordings of 1st person community narratives and to engage residents to be the authors of their own stories. This initiative will teach residents not only to capture their stories but will create a living sound capsule of cultural expression for years to come.
Maison Freetown’s Community Sound Lab wishes to encourage the idea that everyone’s story matters and to build connections. Valuable oral traditions such as storytelling, language-based narratives, songs and other expressions are vital to our Louisiana culture. These recordings will be collected at the digital lab housed within Lafayette’s cultural museum, Maison Creole de Freetown. These recordings will be made available to the public on an online platform.
These 1-minute audio snippets will act as a living historical record for future learning and heritage preservation. We wish to empower citizens to share their experiences and to make this information easily accessible for everyone to enjoy.
Through digital innovation, we aim to quickly gather stories of our culture bearers, especially our seniors and to help remedy a critical concern regarding the posterity of historical data of under-represented communities or marginalized people.
We hope the sound lab recordings will provide a comprehensive glimpse of our Lafayette neighbors, and highlight Acadiana’s unique community “voices” in perpetuity.
Project Details
Team Leader: Erica Fox Funded Date: November 5, 2022 Amount: $3,288 Location: Lafayette, LA
Dear Community, We are elated about the progress we are making with our community sound recordings. We are still busy gathering stories and have heard from some very interesting individuals. Our latest project and perhaps most ambitious, is that of 103 year old WW2...
Dear Community, The Freetown Sound Lab has already hit the ground running with 5 in-person interviews of neighborhood citizens. We’ve already started to capture some amazing stories such as the Black Baseball League in Lafayette and The Circus Comes to Town, to...
Dear Community, It's The Freetown Sound Lab!! We're still riding high from the 24 Hr Citizen event and enjoyed working alongside some pretty amazing folks...all of whose stories we plan to capture! We were awarded our request to create a digital sound lab...
Project Creole Garsons aims to increase male participation in the performing arts. There are several socially-constructed circumstances that negatively impact male participation. This scholarship program will work to eliminate many of these barriers by exposing the participants to a series of workshops and classes in a variety of artistic genres mostly led by male professional artists. The participants will then apply their knowledge in their artistic area(s) of interests. The program will culminate in the boys’ own artistic performance or production work being featured in the Creole Nutcracker.
The Creole Nutcracker was born out of the hearts of its two creators whose main purpose is to further expose the youth of Acadiana to the arts. The production is seasoned with the food, the language, and the music of the charming Creole culture. Each participant has an opportunity to perform on stage or work behind the scenes getting first-hand experience in a variety of different forms of the arts.Since 2018, The Creole Nutcracker has educated over 200 young performers as cast members. In these 4 years, 191 of the 200 young artists were female, and only 9 were male.
In our goal of exposing and educating the youth of Acadiana to the arts, we have been missing the mark with our young male population. Project Creole Garsons was created to fix this problem. The report Living the Arts through Language + Learning showed that young people with high arts involvement were 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement, 4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair, 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance, and 3 times more likely to be elected to class office. All students deserve the opportunity to take part in the arts, both in school and in the community. The arts encourage students to: stay in school, succeed in school, succeed in life and succeed in work. It is proven that the arts benefit a child’s social development and academic achievement. And we need more boys in Acadiana getting these benefits!
There are several socially-constructed circumstances that negatively impact male participation in the arts. This scholarship program will work to eliminate many of these barriers by exposing the participants to a series of workshops and classes in a variety of artistic genres mostly led by male professional artists. The participants will then apply their knowledge in their artistic area(s) of interests. The program will culminate in the boys’ own artistic performance or production work being featured in the Creole Nutcracker. Creole Garsons is designed to foster creativity in more young men, and give them outlets for self-expression. From ballet to hip-hop and lighting to stage management, our program has something that will inspire tous les garsons.
Project Details
Team Leaders: Leigha Porter / Jazmyn Jones Funded Date: November 6, 2021 Amount: $2,500 Location: Lafayette, LA
Dear Community, We have exciting news! We have selected our inaugural class of Creole Garsons and their mentors. And guess what? We have exceeded our goal of 10 garsons and now have 11! Wow! This summer, we hosted two virtual meetings with the boys where they were...
Dear Community, We are making progress and are very excited! Since our last update, we have established our project timeline and have chosen the art disciplines that will be included in our programming. Creole Garçons will meet virtually and in person on some weekends...
Dear Community, It has been a little over a month since we won the support of the backers for our project “Creole Garçons”. And we are still riding on cloud 9! We’re feeling energized, encouraged, empowered, and equipped. Thank you backers, 24 Hour Citizen Project,...
Our team is creating a traveling, interactive theatre workshop that provides a performing arts outlet for youth in our community. This workshop will be 3 hours long, and includes a solid curriculum covering an introduction to theatre, along with a Mad-Lib style original play that explores important topics like bullying, self-esteem, and team-work! Our team is equipped with trained professionals to execute this project and we can’t wait to get started!
This project is two-fold. For the children: Theatre activities provide an interactive, creative & immersive gateway for kids to express themselves & learn about the world around them. Theatre artists make observations and use life experiences to perform their realities, hopes, dreams, and ideas. Being part of a theatre activity can give a child the tools to be collaborative and creatively problem solve within a group. This project would be an attempt to expose youth to these skills in a fun and effective way!
For the professional theatre artists living in this community: Too often, theatre artists work for free, especially in Acadiana. This leads them to leaving our area to seek paid work in their field. One of my goals, as a citizen of Lafayette, is to create job opportunities for our local performing arts talent. This is one small project, that if executed with care, can grow into a program that impacts children and supplies theatre professionals with jobs in future years. Performing arts programming is often the first line item removed from school budgets. This negatively impacts both the children and theatre professionals in our area. This project will bridge the gap in performing arts offerings in our community by being accessible due to its mobility. With this project, teaching artists will travel to students who will benefit greatly from this experience.
Our team wants to share our knowledge of why theatre is important, what we can learn from theatre, character development, relationships, and storytelling with children in our community. Our hope is to introduce these concepts to children to give them a creative writing and performance outlet. First, the kids will be led through improv exercises that build self-confidence. Then they will become part of creating a story, giving them ownership and a sense of pride in their work. Volunteers from the group of children will be allowed to become our actors for the play we create together! They’ll dress up in costumes and use special props to aid them in acting the story out while the story is narrated by the instructors. Those not performing the piece will be part of our interactive audience. The instructors will give them cues in the script to listen for, and various things to do (make a sound effect, clap, stomp, etc) when certain things are said by the actors on stage. This demonstrates that all jobs in theatre are important, even being an audience member!
Project Details
Team Leader: Allison Brandon Funded Date: November 6, 2021 Amount: $3,600 Location: Lafayette, LA
Dear Community, Our second workshop on July 12, 2022, was a success! We partnered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Acadiana this time! We had about 12 kiddos participate, and we had a blast doing improv exercises, learning...
Dear Community, We held our first workshop in partnership with New Hope Community Development Center on April 5 & 6, 2022. The workshop consisted of 2 fun-filled days including a crash course in theatre, improv exercises, team building, creative writing, script...
Dear Community, Our program development has taken off in a big way! Danielle Moroux, recipient of 24 HCP 2017 funding for "Pop Up Kids Theatre" has joined forces with The Mad Thinkers for our creative writing process. Brii Simmons and I are working closely with...
Dear Community, Mad Thinkers are moving and grooving in our process of creating our interactive theatre workshop. We are currently in “scheduling mode,” meaning we are scheduling our writing sessions, and our first workshop with Big Brothers Big Sisters. During 24...
