Try new signature fall beverages and have your questions answered this October, at CR Coffee Shop on Magazine St. Owner Kevin Pedeaux is opening his Uptown space as a hub for candidates this election season to reach the community. The informal atmosphere is open to respectfully ask pressing questions, share ideas, or simply observe and listen.
Upcoming ‘Coffee with Candidates’ events include Leilani Heno for Mayor scheduled for Oct. 15 at 10:30 a.m., and JP Morrell for at-large City Council Division 2 scheduled for Oct. 19 at 8 a.m.; at CR Coffee Shop, 3618 Magazine St.
Porch concerts had been popping up throughout the city when Milan area residents Natalia and Guy Gonzalez began hosting concerts on their Marengo Street front porch. The tradition started for the Gonzalezes in the fall of 2020, after a musician asked Natalia’s 94-year-old mother if she would put on a porch concert to help out the Radio Bird Quartet. She agreed, and then Natalia took on the project. “We have had Radio Bird, of course, as well as The Walrus, a Beatles cover band,” Natalia Gonzalez said. “In fact, recently when their Zony Mash show got canceled, they came to our porch and played the concert there.”
They are now presenting shows twice monthly, with Mia Borders booked for an upcoming show.
Kingsley House board members, senior leadership, elected officials and staff announced that the name of the 125-year-old nonprofit will be changed. The decision came after racist ideologies of Charles Kingsley, a Victorian-era British clergyman, author and social reformer, were discovered. The nonprofit is a social and human multi-service organization with a focus ranging from toddlers to seniors, Kingsley House officials say. Its main campus is in the Lower Garden District. Kingsley House CEO Keith Liederman said that he and others involved in the decision believe it’s important to dissociate the nonprofit from someone with contradicting viewpoints.
YAYA Arts Center in Central City is hosting Back in Bloom, a spring showcase with art demos, live music from Jack Sledge and the Hammers, and an art market by YAYA artists. The free celebration of spring will be held Friday (May 21) from 6 to 8 pm. at the YAYA Arts Center, 3322 LaSalle St. Participants can also watch glass art demos and take part in the Goblet Grab, which involves buying a handmade glass that can be filled, free of charge, throughout the evening. YAYA, for Young Aspirations Young Artists, was founded in 1988 as a creative partnership between New Orleans artist Jana Napoli and art students from International High School of New Orleans as an after-school enrichment program.
New Orleans traditions are here to stay! Every year, Rouses Markets donates millions of pounds of food to local food banks, food pantries, and community fridges. “I appreciate and love the way our stores and the neighborhoods they serve work together to support one another, and make sure that everyone has enough food to eat,” said Marcy Nathan, Rouses Markets’ creative director. Rouses Markets has always supported local nonprofit organizations, schools and churches working to make their neighborhoods better places to live and work. Recently they started a new community initiative, Red Beans & Rouses, in partnership with churches all over New Orleans.
Listening to the radio while driving nine years ago, Alison Parker heard a segment about the book “Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion” by Elizabeth Cline, and it opened her eyes to the problem of waste and pollution in the fashion and clothing business.
“I knew I could no longer sit on the sidelines and do nothing,” Parker said. Eventually, it lead her to found ricRACK, a nonprofit organization its website describes as “combining creative skill building with environmental responsibility.”
Everything that ricRACK does, Parker said, in some way combats the waste prevalent in the fashion industry, which is estimated be the second-largest consumer of the world’s water supply and pollutes the oceans with micro plastics. What’s more, 85% of all textiles go to the dump each year. And when this happens, the dyes and chemicals from the fabrics leach into the ground water and release greenhouse gasses.
To promote the productive recycling of clothes, ricRACK has opened a thrift store in Central City that sells donated clothes as well as those that have been used in films and TV shows, and sponsors a variety of sewing classes. Parker herself worked in the costume department for Cirque du Soleil for five years and then as a costume designer for theater and films, so she has those connections.
New this month is a virtual exhibit that shows how New Orleans has benefited from Black leadership and engagement since the 19th century. Hancock Whitney and the Amistad Research Center at Tulane have partnered to present this curated collection, entitled “The Things We Do for Ourselves: African American Leadership in New Orleans.”
The exhibit uses Google Cultural Institute’s platform to create a virtual expansion of a past physical exhibition at the center. The virtual collection went live in celebration of Black History Month, though it was created as a free, permanent and accessible way to give back to the communities the organizations serve. Christopher Harter, deputy director of the Amistad Research Center, said it is important for the local community to see how African American civic leadership helped shape New Orleans. The purpose of this collection, he said, is “to educate the public about not only the historical materials that are housed in Amistad’s collections, but how these materials are relevant to the questions and issues that we’re facing today.”
The Kellogg Foundation awarded Hoffman Early Learning Center (Hoffman) a two-year grant for $400,000. “These funds will help the center achieve sustainability and to achieve its mission to provide a high-quality, affordable early education to children from a diverse set of socio-economic background,” said Joel Castro, CEO of New Orleans College Prep which operates Hoffman. “We know there is a need for our services, and the support from the Kellogg Foundation will greatly help us further our mission,” said Castro, citing research showing that there are nearly 12,000 low-income families with children ages 0-4 without access to affordable, quality early childcare programs in New Orleans. “Our job is to close the learning gap between low-income students and their more affluent peers,” he said. “We are doing that,” said Hoffman Executive Director Zerlander Ragas.
The WRBH 88.3 FM studios, a landmark on the corner of Magazine and Foucher streets, has a distinctive spot in the broadcasting world. It is the nation’s only full-time FM reading radio service and one of only three such stations in the world, according to its website.
WRBH, also known as “Reading Radio,” turns the printed word into the spoken word so that vision-impaired people can receive the same ease of access to current information as their sighted peers.
Two other stations share that mission: Minnesota Radio Talking Book Network, a sideband service not on the FM dial, and Vision Australia Radio Network. The latter is a network of eight radio stations whose programming and structure are similar to WRBH but do not operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Australian group recently reached out to WRBH to share information, ideas and forge a relationship. The target audience for Reading Radio includes the blind and illiterate, as well as individuals who are unable to read due to illness, spinal cord injuries, eye muscle damage, learning disabilities, lack of access to print media and loss of vision due to age.
The Crescent City (LA) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated presents the first in a series of chapter-hosted webinars. The first webinar, What You Need To Know About Successions, takes place via Zoom this Wednesday, December 9, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Our presenter will be retired Judge Carolyn W. Gill-Jefferson, former Chief Judge for the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans. Media pro Camille Whitworth will moderate the webinar. We encourage you to join us for information that will include understanding the importance of successions:
