Mad Thinkers

by butch | Nov 6, 2021

Mad Thinkers

Project Description

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

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Saturday School

by butch | Dec 30, 2019

Saturday School: The EdD Series

Project Description

Saturday School is an academic project that will support the continued efforts of the Lafayette Parish School System to academically advance students. The project will specifically focus on core subject to ensure students are at grade level, pass EOC and graduate high school. The goal of the program is push students to new academic heights as we encourage them to be lifelong learners who share their knowledge and skill set with other Lafayette residents. This program has the potential to: improve student academic performance, which will allow student’s to be on grade level and increase the number of students who are graduating from high school with a traditional high school diploma.

Currently, there are a number of failing or lack of academic progress schools within Lafayette Parish. These schools range from elementary to high school, with all of the schools being within the Transformation Zone. The Transformation Zone is an area within Lafayette Parish that receives additional funding to support the academic and professional growth of students and educators. Although there is a clear effort from the school board to support academic growth within the transformation zone, many students are more than one grade level behind, which makes it difficult to obtain academic success with in the school year. My idea is to support the efforts of the transformation zone as we focus on developing student’s academic skills in a smaller and engaging learning environment. I would like to begin Saturday School by diagnosing students’ area of weakness to provide student’s with additional academic support to ensure they reach grade level standards and pass their end of the year state exam.

In order to ensure participation and academic growth, the Saturday School session will be four weeks. The schedule will be as follows:

Week 1: Diagnostic Week. Students will be tested to determine their area(s) of weakness. This test will determine where they will be placed for the remanding three Saturdays.

Weeks 2-4: Teachers will develop students’ academic skills through a supportive and engaging learning environment. Students will be able to take up to two core classes a Saturday. Courses that will be offered are: Science, Social Studies, Math, and Language Arts.

Certified educators who have been trained to provide engaging activities for at risk students will provide academic support. The activities will be directly aligned to the states educational standards for each grade level to ensure academic growth.

Working together as a community to provide students with additional academic support will help to improve the academic performance of our students, the schools performance score and the removal of the transformation zone stigma. Education is the key to improving the number of Lafayette residences, who graduate high school, receive post secondary education or training and become employed within the state of Louisiana. Programs such as Saturday School will allows students to feel supported as we encourage their commitment to learning.

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Project Details

Team Leader Brandi Clay
Funded Date November 9, 2019
Funding Amount: $3,500
Location: Lafayette, LA

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Greening Festival

by butch | Dec 30, 2019

Greening Festival

Project Description

Team Greening Festival wants to reduce the amount of waste created at Festival International and be part of catalyzing a styrofoam-free Lafayette! The ultimate goal of this project is to put Festival International on the road to becoming a “zero waste” event. The first step is replacing styrofoam serviceware items (i.e. plates, bowls, and clamshells) used by Festival vendors with compostable versions made out of bagasse, a byproduct of sugarcane mills.

We’re bringing out the FIL Geaux Green logo by putting Festival International (and eventually other local festivals) on the road to becoming a “zero waste” event! Anyone who has spent any time at Festival International (isn’t that all of us?) knows that most of the food is served on styrofoam plates or containers. But did you know that styrofoam never goes away and that these food containers can neither be recycled nor recovered in any existing system? We bet you definitely didn’t know that there are compostable equivalents to all the styrofoam plates, bowls, and clamshells used today. In fact, one such plant-based item is made from sugar cane bagasse, a byproduct of sugarcane mills that we have an abundance of here in South Louisiana.

Depending on the product (plate, bowl, clamshell, etc), the cost difference between styrofoam and bagasse can range from nothing to fifty cents. We know this can be a significant ask of vendors, particularly those not used to this idea of “zero waste”. We will work with Festival International vendors to help them source materials, and, where it might be a barrier, use 24HCP funding to cover a portion of the difference in cost.

This effort will be paired with a fully-backed Festival International marketing effort promoting FIL’s move away from styrofoam. Vendors who elect to participate will be designated in the FIL app and at their vendor booths with the FIL Geaux Green logo.

Future Plan:

The beauty of plant based materials comes full circle if you are able to capture them once Festival-goers have finished eating. These materials, along with any food residue and leftovers, can be sent to compost at a right-sized and managed facility. When managed properly and mixed with other organic material, oxygen, and water; all of this plant-based waste will break back down into healthy, rich soil! It is very important that no other materials get mixed in though, so we would start with collection in select areas only (i.e. Parc San Souci) and follow Louisiana Football’s model of hand sorting compost after each event to make sure that no other waste materials end up in the compost pile. This work would be completed by volunteers similar to the volunteers who handle recycling at Festival Acadien.

Project Details

Team Leader: Monica Rowand
Funded Date: November 9, 2019
Funding Amount: $3,000
Location: Lafayette, LA

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Kids N’ Media

by butch | Dec 29, 2019

Kids N’ Media

Project Description

Our project is all about equipping teens with the proper tools and training to become local media experts. Teens would first be taught the proper way to film and utilize equipment. Newly acquired skills will be used to film news segments and short documentaries focusing on the teen experience in Lafayette.

The goal of our project is to create something that Lafayette teens will be proud of. The first phase of the program will be training and discovery. One group of students will be trained by Mark Tassin on the filming and production aspect of media. He will offer training on camera functions, lighting, video editing and scriptwriting. The second set of training will be for students who choose to be in front of the camera. This will include creative writing, Digital Storytelling (partnering with Acadiana Open Channel) and the creation of storyboards. We anticipate that students will struggle to articulate their experience as a result of not having the opportunity to express it before. We hope to explore creative ways to help them find their voice.

Students will need to commit to two areas that they will become experts in before we begin preproduction of the Teen Tales Documentary. Students will refine their skills of media production by shooting and editing biweekly news clips for the Clearport Learning Center. This will allow them to refine skills in preparation for the Documentary.

The Clearport Learning Center will host a screening of the Teen Tales Documentary that will be open to students and community members.

Project Details

Team Leader: Raquel Henry
Funded Date: November 9, 2019
Funding Amount: $3,000
Location: Lafayette, LA

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Musical Instrument Library

by butch | Jul 29, 2017

M.I.Brary: Musical Instrument Library

Project Description

Team”M.I.Brary” was funded $5,000 during the 24 Hour Citizen Project in 2017 to build a musical instrument library. According to project creator, Ryan Cazares, a”M.I.Brary” is a place where musicians or prospective musicians can check out various musical instruments, much like they can a book at a traditional library. This project speaks to the heart of musicians, and prospective musicians who want to try an instrument without the up front cost burden of purchasing it.

The MIBrary will help address a few problems with connecting musicians with instruments:

1.) Musicians will not be faced with the financial burden of renting or purchasing an instrument.
2.) Musicians who want to try an instrument will not have to commit to it should they end up not enjoying the chosen instrument.
3.) Recording artists who may want to sample a particular instrument will have easy access to several instruments while in the recording process.

It is our hope that providing musicians and prospective musicians with the ability to check out instruments will help sustain Lafayette’s musical culture and create musicians who may have never had access to musical instruments.

Project Details

Team Leader Ryan Cazares
Funded Date July 29, 2017
Location: Lafayette, LA

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Project Update

MIBRARY Update #1

Nov 18, 2017

Dear Community, As you may recall during the 24 Hour Citizen Project, our immediate push following the event was to obtain musical instruments through drives and donations. Since then, we’ve learned that a musical instrument drive is not the...