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OneRouge Community Check -In - Week 158



Since March 2020 during the Covid outbreak a rotating group of 400+ community leaders from the business, municipal, and nonprofit sectors have gathered every Friday morning via Zoom to listen and discuss issues that are impacting the Capital Region in Louisiana. These conversations cover a wide range of topics connected to the Nine Drivers of Poverty. From the beginning, the objective has been to provide a brave space for honest dialogue and identify systematic challenges, but most importantly to present collective impact solutions.


This week we will be diving into the three drivers whose coalitions have fully launched! Join us as our co-chairs for Capital Area Food Equity, Education to Career, and Transportation and Mobility Coalitions give an update on who we are, what we do, and how you can be involved. Our featured speakers are:


Enlight, Unite, & Ignite!


Quick Links: Notes, Zoom Chat, Community Announcements

 

Notes

Pepper Roussel:

Happy Friday. One Rouge, thank y'all for being here. As always, you know how much I enjoy you spending part of your Friday mornings with me. we are at 158 weeks, I wanna say this, this particular Friday, which is darn amazing. When you think about not only the folks that continue to join meaning y'all that continue to join and continue to help us build.


And I love that we are working together on, you know, similar, same goal moving forward. Today we have look at the CAFE show out. Today we have. Report outs from our coalitions that have stand, that are standing up now. You know, we've been sort of crawling and stumbling and just like a toddler trying to get our feet underneath us and now we are firmly walking towards the Baton Rouge that we all wanna see.


And so just as a level set, we are of course one rouge coalition. And our aspiration statement is to foster an inclusive community culture in our city that leads to equitable opportunities for all. And I'm sure that you'll remember and know that the objective of course is that each one of these coalitions that is addressing the nine drivers of poverty will be doing something in order to get to that equitable op to all of those equitable opportunities.


But more than that, establishing our leadership is establishing our community. So I'm gonna stop paddling on and introduce our first set of speakers, which will be for the Capital Area Food Equity Coalition, that, which is for our food. Well, you know what? It speaks for itself. So Jan, Caitlyn, and Emily, if y'all would not mind letting the good people of the One Rouge School large coalition know who you are, what we do, and how they can be involved?


Emily, you wanna start us out?


Emily Chatelain:

Yes. Good morning. Hi everybody. I'm Emily, executive director of Three O'Clock Project. So we kind of have a share out for CAFE. I'll let Caitlyn and Jan introduce themselves real quick and then we'll jump in. Okay.


Caitlyn Scales:

Hi everyone. I'm Caitlyn Scales. I am the development director at three o'clock Project with Emily and love working with a lot of you on this screen.


Jan Ross:

All right. I'm Jan Ross with the Huey & Angelina Wilson Foundation and am very fortunate to have my two co-chairs along with me. So, Emily, you want to start out in describing what has been happening of recent with CAFE?


Emily Chatelain:

Yep. So so CAFE, you know, just to kind of restate what our mission is, it's to decrease the number of individuals in the capital region experiencing food insecurity.


And we have a set of goals of ending hunger teaching to grow and promoting greater utilization and access to existing feeding programs. Recently we had our first in-person convening meeting. Over at the Goodwood Library where we had some really great facilitators and we discussed sort of all the issues, and problems folks are having in this space and then how, you know, what are the solutions and ways that we can tackle them together.


We are, I believe, hosting the next in-person meeting in August. And a lot of really positive, you know, feedback came out of that group. It had been a long time, kind of coming of years of meeting on Zoom, so it was really fun to get together in person and hear more about what all of our groups are doing and what's happening out in the community.


We are, as a group, I think, really excited about some of the things happening over the summer and in the coming kind of school year. If we think of school years I know that a d r has some really exciting news about. They've hired two chefs. They're kind of revamping their food program.


They're also building out a culinary teaching kitchen this summer at one of their schools. Our local food bank is diving into summer feeding this summer. We are also feeding kids this summer with Y M C A, so there's a lot going on in this space in our community that is working towards meeting some of these goals.


They are lofty goals, so, you know, it will definitely be a work in progress as our group, you know, continues to evolve and, and progress. So our kind of closeout here is that we would love to kind of have you at our table as we meet, you know, we meet once a month on Zoom and I believe twice a year, maybe quarterly in person.


That's new. Be sure that you're on, you know, all the emails for that. But we'd also love to come sit at your table, you know, as, as everybody is on here and having meetings and groups and projects and things brewing. We're really excited, you know, to hear about some of the things happening and we'd love to learn more, be more involved and put all of our resources at your table as well.


So that is my update for CAFE Jan or Caitlyn. Anything to add?


Jan Ross:

I'll add a few of a little bit more of the detail of what came out of our in-person meeting just recently. And. There are many, many benefits, many, many services that are available for, to people, for, in food insecurity.


But a lot of 'em just don't know where they are or how they qualify. And there are a number of organizations that assist individuals in gaining access to these services and benefits. Such as Hope Ministries, the Food Bank, and St. John Methodist. They have coordinators that help individuals sign up for a lot of these benefits.


And this is of great concern as many of the benefits were implemented at the beginning of COVID. Many families gained access to food and supplemental funding in order to purchase food. Well, that's starting to cut out. And especially now as children are home for the summer, there's great, great need to ensure that families that qualify have access to those applications and those services.


So that's one thing that we really recognize. This is a, a means of all of us coming together and whether it be working with our own clients in directing them to where the services and assistance are, or just helping to build awareness of it. Another thing which is something that Three o'clock project among others really is challenged with is that there are new regulations for entities that are preparing food to be distributed out in the community.


And that. Believe you me, that is one, a large undertaking, but is very needed because not all programs can prepare foods for their clients, though it is a part of their program that they offer their clients. But the regulations really require much more extensive cooking facilities that are quite expensive and are an undertaking to you know, to implement in order to get food out to out into the community.


And so that is one thing that our coalition is really working to uncover. What are some of the possibilities? Where are some partnerships that can take place in order to best utilize some of the cooking facilities that are available. And as what Emily had said, it is really all of us coming together.


We're all gathered around the nine drivers of poverty. We have a lot of intersecting avenues that we travel. But how can we come together, work together to ensure that the Food Coalition is working with the Transportation Coalition, is working with Education Coalition, and on to ensure that we are able to help, you know, all of our community.


And it really helps each of us and each of the coalitions to, you know, better serve and to be much more effective. So I will stop there. Caitlyn, would you like to add anything real quick?


Caitlyn Scales:

I think you all covered it beautifully and I think just to echo what Emily shared one thing that we see, especially, I mean with Three O'clock project we're in and outta schools and youth programs, but among other areas of food equity as well, places where there's garins, places where there's people gathering transportation.


Issues and trying to help harness how we can best impact families and communities through those needs. Just to echo that, the more we can sit at each other's tables, the better that we can raise our impact and help each other's goals too. So we're here for it and hope to work collaboratively and have more of you at our table moving forward.




Pepper Roussel:

Awesome. Thank you. CAFE co-chairs. And it's worth noting too, these three human beings have, including some of you on the line, Annie included you all have been putting in this work for over two years behind the scenes and building not only a framework for CAFE, but quite frankly you know, took on the, the pressure of trying to be in the Guinea pig for the one Rouge coalitions, right?


And figuring out this collective impact model around this intersectional work. And Folks, it's impossible to like really explain how many hours Caitlyn and Emily and Jan, and others on this call have sunk into this work and invested in your community. So as they're not really one for praise, but I'm gonna give it anyway.


So thank y'all so much for everything that y'all done. Including now we're shifting over and talking about our second coalition that has also launched off last month, the Education to Career Coalition potentially one of the widest in range in depth. Of the coalitions to date. Because if you think about everything from early childhood all the way through you know, individuals till their get to their retirement and also doing their encore careers, that's a really long continuum and that's really, we call it the 10th, the size of the super do.


Casey Phillips:

That all everybody that's working in that space between early childhood all the way to, you know, people's last careers you know, there's a lot of people doing a lot of great work and we're bringing everybody together to do that. So speaking of years of investment as said in building the coalitions out and building the framework for E2C, I'm gonna turn it over first to our co-chair, Adonica Pelichet Duggan.


Adonica Duggan:

Thanks Casey. Definitely want to express our gratitudes for CAFE, for paving the path for us. We launched our first coalition meeting on May 16th at the Goodwood Library. Goodwood Library's been very busy, it feels like from all of our coalition meetings. Great to do that. The aspirational statement for the E two C committee is to build a culture of quality instruction, lifelong learning and equitable access to opportunity that makes success and prosperity inevitable, which is, you know, definitely an aspirational statement, but we have four working groups that are currently going on.


We have equity and access schools as community hubs, bridging the gap between education and industry and community outreach and events. And so at our last meeting we had the opportunity to work. On our goals, which I think someone will throw into the chat which are to create a culture that values literacy, increased equitable access to safe learning spaces, expand awareness and access to early childhood education, and increased opportunities for continuous learning.


So we took each one of those goals and we broke them into the working groups and we really dug into the opportunities and challenges around each of those goals. And, you know, there was a really rich conversation if you want to be a part of that conversation. We are continuing to invite people to our Big 10.


But we had our first quarterly meeting and again, we'll go to with the same format as CAFE Quarterly in persons and monthly zooms. So just a lot going on. We're ready to get started. There's a lot to happen there, so. Awesome. Thank you. You have anything to add? No, please. What you got? I was just asking if Tonnisha had anything to add.


I know that she's been working on that coalition as well. It was perfect. There is no thunder to steal. I said we're all together and as Adonica just turned it over to Tonnisha, I just wanna make sure and lift one thing up. It's super important, right? Just like how Kelli has been driving, helping drive forward, go get healthy for the last five years which is a huge amount of body of work in the center of CAFE.


Right. You know, Tonnisha has been doing, you know, with the CHA and the Chamber have been doing a lot of work around coalition from Education to Career, including TAC and Tonnisha. And, and Trey Godfrey were able to kind of also join in as co-chairs on this work to bring all of that work that they're already doing at the chamber and expand it more to the left and the right of what they're doing.


So Tonnisha, appreciate you being a part of this. And is there anything that you would like to build that AD said.


Tonnisha Ellis:

Think Adonica did a great job summarizing the meeting. A lot of great feedback and I'm really, really excited to have community partners in this work as we build to make a better Baton Rouge boom.


Casey Phillips:

Running for office right there. That said, nice. Tonnisha, that was nice. Appreciate you. And also you know, shout out for Dustin Lafon who couldn't be here with us, but Dustin, obviously hard for the kids, hard for the work, and you can kind of see just the spectrum that just Donica and Dustin and Tonnisha and Trey cover is very representative of not only the community that is doing the work, but all the different sectors that are like intertwined in this work.


So you'd like to get together get, get involved in the work. And, you know, besides just Dustin, I'll also have to give a shout-out. There is a larger leadership council for One Rouge that has dedicated for the last two years to helping shape the framework for this work. And obviously, our partners at MetaMorphosis with Raymond and Sherreta are bringing that Collective Impact 3.0, you know, ethos into the work.


Shout out to Dean Andrews from the Southern University College of Business, Myra Richardson and Alfredo Cruz, who are also in the space. They're part of the Leadership Council that is working on what's currently here. And then of course, what is to come with the additional coalitions 4 - 9.


But with that being said, I just wanted to say thank you so much for everybody that turned out to the first in-person launch of E2C. You'll be getting an invite today. I wanted to give everybody's inbox a little space this week. You know, from all the invites that you'll be getting the the monthly Zoom check-ins as well as the invitation for the August next in person.


And we hope more people are at the table and bring all your friends, bring all your rowdy friends as the country song says. All right, Pepper, you wanna take it away for T&M?


Pepper Roussel:

Absolutely. But I did wanna make sure that everybody completely understands that as E2C is inviting you to the table. There is somewhere that you can fit in, I assure you. Because it is education to career, there is no place nothing that is left unturned. Additionally, there are, the intention is that there is going to be some inter interconnectedness between the coalitions, right? So whether it is that you're thinking about children who are food insecure attending schools, or if you are thinking about adults who are also food insecure who work every day.


The objective is that there is, again, this overlap and this interconnectedness between the coalitions. It's not just focused on one thing, it is all of the things, all of the time with a heading. But all of that said w our third coalition is transportation and mobility. That also had our very first in-person meeting because, well, you know, quarterly, Athens Quarterly.


Anyways Cheri. As one of our co-chairs for transportation of ability. Would you mind coming off mute and giving us a bit of an update?


Cheri Soileau:

Sure. Thanks Pepper. We had a fabulous meeting last week when we had 20 people and some great feedback. I had been going through the cards cuz we asked what we needed to do, how we needed to approach this, and we have some things to, to focus on.


But first our aspirational statement is inclusive, accessible, and progressive mobility options for the present and future of our entire community. And that's important for our entire community. And actually the first two coalitions we're key to help you guys. Get to where you need to go for education and for food and for medical and everything else.


It's transportation. And it's not just transit, it's not just cars, it's everybody. So we all work together, we all weave in, and it's what I call gumbo planning. It's taking what we have is gumbo, is taking what you have, the ingredients and making this delicious meal, if you will. So we're gonna make the delicious plan that brings our communities together to help each other and we're excited.


Tina is my co-chair Dr. Reverend Anderson, who's been fabulous to all the supporters. We're gonna have our next quarterly meeting in August, I believe. We've gotten some good feedback. We want everybody's input. There's no preconceived notion. There's no. One way to do things. And as I do it in my professional career here at Cats, we have to be flexible and agile.


Things are changing. We're in a post covid world. And it's exciting. It really is because in the transportation world, we're looking at a whole new world and come join us. Even if you can't give Tina or myself your ideas and your thoughts. Nothing's too outrageous, nothing's too odd. And we'll start with Baton Rouge, but we have to go regional.


It's really important because even people outside of Baton Rouge need food, need medical need, and education need. These services, need us to help each other rise up out of these barriers. Whatever, poverty and, and to give them dignity and a better life. So that's, that's it. I don't know what else to say.


I'm excited. This is a really exciting time.


Casey Phillips:

I agree with you. It was a really impactful meeting. What was interesting about the transportation and mobility meeting for me, my observation of all three coalition meetings was that 90 to 95% of the people who came into the space actually spoke.


Mm-hmm. Right? Yes. And that's really interesting to note folks, you know, sometimes we all go to these meetings even at the incredible library, right? And if there's a room full of 20 to 50 people, you usually hear from anywhere from two to five people. And you know, and not just because they're the speakers, but people sometimes are very shy to share, lift up their voice.


And I feel like the collective impact you know, just that framework in general kind of facilitates that space for everyone to feel comfortable to share their voice. And if you really want to like watch dissonance on people kind of approaching the same thing from so many different angles, transportation and mobility seems to be the one that's probably one of the most hotly contested ones, right?


Where everyone is kind of then kind of like they're speaking their voice, everyone's listening to each other. But everybody's also being respectful in actually trying to move it forward to kind of find that medium ground. Cause that's really what it is. And it's been I think that Raymond in the Metamorphosis team has really done a great job helping lead that transportation and mobility and Reverend Anderson.


I see that's still on here. I just wanted to give you a little space for your voice to be heard as the, you know, as one of the godmothers of the Transportation Mobility Coalition.


Rev. Alexis Anderson:

Good morning. I was just gonna say that the thing that is always so interesting to me about transportation is that it is one of those foundational issues that it can push somebody into poverty so it becomes amplified when people are poor.


But lack of transportation is also an issue that can easily move people. Either middle-class status into almost immediate poverty because of the impact it has on getting food, on getting employment, on getting healthcare. And so it truly is one of my honors to work on this coalition and to make sure that the multitude of voices, that have to be heard, whether it is flying, walking, driving, bicycling, all of those voices have to be in the space because in, in a way, almost that nothing else really hits.


Transportation is such a decider of whether people are, are going to end up in poverty. So I'm just very excited about the work ahead.


Casey Phillips:

Awesome. Thank you, Reverend Anderson, Pepper. Anything that you would like to build on from there? Because obviously, you weren't in the T&M meeting you know, really just being, listening more than you were speaking. And then also you know, just anything that you want to lift up in general.


Pepper Roussel:

What I find really, really wildly interesting about transportation and mobility is that it impacts absolutely everyone, but so few people speak on it on a regular basis. So people bring so few, bring it to the forefront of their minds unless you're working in it. And the folks who showed up at the in-person are not only folks who are in the cut, as Casey would say, but they, are also folks who are cognizant of the folks who may not travel in expected ways.


So when I say expected, I mean cars, right? So we are car-centric cities. We are a car-centric nation. We've entire suburbs came out of the, the whole concept of cars. And the purpose of this particular coalition is not only to expand that understanding and the expectation that, one, not everybody travels in a car, but it's also not just wheels.


So whether it is that you're walking, you are riding a bus, you are on a scooter, a bicycle, or in an actual car that we, I don't wanna use it. The slogan share the road. But I do wanna make sure that everybody understands that there's more than one way to get to a place and everybody's gotta get somewhere, whether it's school or work, or to your kids after school stuff.


Or maybe you're just having fun, right? Just. Go into a concert just going somewhere for the sake of going somewhere, taking a walk. We don't do enough to ensure that we have sidewalks that connect things we don't do enough to ensure that we've got access for those who have challenged physical, actual, physical challenges.


For those who, I mean, we talk about folks who can't afford cars, but maybe there are folks who just don't wanna drive. Maybe there are folks who don't ha have a driver's license for whatever reason that might happen to be having them sitting at a bus stop, waiting for a bus. That well timing being what it is, but there's no place to sit.


It may be inclement weather like rain for sure, but we all know it gets about as hot as Hades in the middle of August, and standing underneath the blazing sun is not a fun thing to do. So I am absolutely thrilled that we are talking about inclusion. Accessible and progressive mobility options, mainly because those are things that we don't necessarily do.


We think it's a one-and-done. If we've got an extra off-ramp, we've got an extra lane in order to evacuate. We think we're finished, but we're not. There are droves and droves and droves of people that we don't consider. And I'm really just happy that this is one of the, one of the coalitions that is fighting the nine drivers of poverty.



Casey Phillips:

Thank you, pepper. I appreciate that. So folks, we're gonna do we're gonna do one more report out. But you know, in the meantime, if you attended any of the coalition meetings last in the last few weeks, and you would like to lend your voice, like Dr. Bell was at the table for CAFE Samantha was absolutely, you know, so was SK and Samantha was at, you know, transportation.


If you attended any of these meetings and you would like to lift your voice up from your perspective on what you heard and what you learned and what you're excited about we're gonna give that space and in a second. But in the, in the meantime, you know, I kind of hinted at several of the members that are on, I mean, several of our members of our leadership council on the call today.


And that's being, that that work is really being led by Sherreta and Sherreta’s. Just gonna give a brief update on the Leadership Council structure and where that sit before we start turning it over to your voices and right on cue.


Sherreta Harrison:

Good morning everyone. Just happy to give just a brief update about the Leadership Council. So we've been talking a lot about the individual coalitions and the work that they have been doing to address those really important issues that contribute to poverty in our community. And we are also very fortunate to have a number of people on the One Rouge Leadership Council to add to the coordination and the continuity of the work that we're trying to do.


And so you all may remember that we talked about establishing the Leadership Council first and that those individuals who serve on the leadership council also serve as co-chairs or, or will serve as co-chairs for the individual coalitions. And that is so that we are making sure A, that the, the coalitions are communicating with one another and that we're really taking a holistic and cross-sector approach to address these issues.


And so it's been a couple of weeks now, the Leadership Council had their quarterly in-person convening and really got down to one of the harder or more elusive, I think, parts of a collective impact approach. And that is beginning to identify these shared metrics, right? And so the idea is that everyone comes to the table.


With thoughts about what to do, thoughts about how to, so how to solve the challenge. But unless we have agreement up on how we are measuring success, it's a lot of times harder to move the needle on things. And so the leadership council spent a great deal of time thinking about, okay, how would one rouge measure their success?


How would one Rouge know that they are contributing to a decrease in, in those factors or that, that drive poverty in our, in our community? And what was interesting about that is that our metrics or beginning metrics fell into two buckets, and they were metrics that were around the work that the coalitions were doing.


So there was some synergy there, but then there was this other set of metrics that were really around the culture. Of, of our city and the culture of this work. Right? And so when you think about making big changes, you yes want to measure success in terms of your population outcomes. So how many people are working, how many people are graduating from school, and those kinds of things.


But when you're talking about system systems change work, you also want to measure how the environment, how the community, how the system has changed, how you have been able to impact the system. And so the leadership council decided to really lean in on that element because the coalitions would be working on the food part, the education part, the transportation and mobility part.


And so the leadership council will really be measuring the way that our city is changing and thinking about ways to hold systems and structures accountable for the change that we are hoping that we are, are, are hoping to. To seek or that we are seeking. The reason that's important is because if, as the individual coalitions are working on things, there are always going to be barriers that need to be addressed.


And the individual coalitions are already working on kind of the, the, the big challenge, the, the subject challenge. And so the leadership council is going to be able to support all of that change in the way that they are, are addressing the systems and structures. And so I'd be happy to share a little bit more about some of the draft metrics, but you should know that they are draft metrics because the way this is going to work is that we're going to we come up with some of our metrics.


We need to identify baseline data. We need to be able to say where we are right now, and then we need to have tracking mechanisms and report out mechanisms so that we can say to this group you know, in the last eight months we've been able to do this. And so I'd be happy to share a little bit more about the content, but please know that these are in the early stages.


We haven't worked out all of the details. However, I am really, really happy to say that the Leadership Council is really focused on that overall community, the com, the community culture. So if you think back to the aspiration for One Rouge, it's not just about the individual coalitions.


It's about how do we make Baton Rouge a better place? And the leadership counselor really committed to doing that. That's the Leadership Council report.


Casey Phillips:

Thank you, Sherreta. I always love our time before 9:00 AM maybe more than you, maybe more than you do, but as I always appreciate our time.


So I put it in the chat folks. Anybody that, oh, wait a minute. Dr. Spencer. Dr. Spencer, you got your one raise shirt, shirt on? Or did I see that wrong? Oh my goodness. Look at that. Twinsies. See you later. Dr. Bell. Said, I said I got, I got you. Thank you, Dr. Messer. That's amazing. So it, you know, the, I would like to, I put it in the chat, but I'd really like to hear the perspective from anyone that attend any of the meetings on something that either a data point that you heard that really struck stuck to you or something that you learned, or a perspective on the opportunity for intersectionality.


Open floor. If anybody would like to raise their hand or just come off mute Dr. Bell and say, I love you still. It doesn't matter if we're not matching today. It was just our orange jokes, orange jokes.


Dr. Fletcher Bell:

I, I know it and that that shirt is actually a good shirt because I wear it when I travel a lot, and you'd be surprised at the conversations I have in the airport, people walk up and ask, what does that mean?


And I will not explain to them the metrics and the collaboratives and the things we are trying to do that a lot of people will say, oh, I need something like that in my city. We need a focus group like that. Or we need the true honest conversations at which I tell them, we discuss in these groups sometimes.


So it's actually a gray shirt to have, especially when you're traveling. Other than that I did attend a CAFE meeting and the thing that excited me about it was hearing the honor real conversation. We see a lot of times that a lot of times we have these meetings, but we are not facing the reality of what's actually going on, on some of the different metrics that actually need to be faced by having Reverend Anderson always say, you gotta.


Have the right people at the table to have a full conversation. So by inviting the different groups, by inviting the different perspectives and points, we were able to in that, in that meeting, I'm hearing things that were a holistic approach to not only food and inequity, but also just a food and quality of having healthy foods, healthy living and things of that nature.


So the metric points that we've made, the things that we are trying to accomplish, the, as I say, the real holistic conversations we ha we're having sergeant to have is what excited me the most about the meeting. Awesome.


Casey Phillips:

Thank you Dr. Bell. Anyone else? Jim, I saw your hand kind of pop up, or was that just a Got it.


Manny Patole: Yeah. Good morning. Great to see how the coalitions are, are coming together and, and working. I know that Casey and I had breakfast where we talked about how some of these. Are not necessarily mutually exclusive, right? So if you're thinking about micro transit or micro hubs, right?


How can those vehicles that aren't being used maybe can be used for delivering food? So they're always in constant motion and constant utilization. How can the people that you're trying to develop job skills for have some sort of career trajectory to understand that, okay, you're starting off as a driver, but how do you become a driver to a manager that leads to a business owner or some somewhere in between that, right?


This idea of how some of these things could be integrated with the education programs that were mentioned before. And provide experiential learning credits, right? How do you certify those so that while people are working and doing these things that, you know, not all of us learn? Well, in the classroom, a lot of us learn better, like on the site, and I'm doing things like that.


So, Keep that in mind as well. I know we have these separate things and they're all in orbit but they are in the same solar system that's really connected with each other. So think about those touchpoints when you're, when you're starting to work and maybe, you know, think about how to create, you know, micro consultancies, right?


That kind of, so if you wanted to do this project, how can you touch upon someone? Include us from CAFE to do that work rather than going to an external consultant, or if you're going to for, advisory on, on local citizen science, go to the transportation group rather than bringing in another they, they don't even work with us and they wanna capture this.


I think someone else came up with you. It's just about how you can start creating these, these economies within that really reinject, those resources back into the local community.


And really provide that experience and know-how, so that you can start building from within rather than building from outside.



Casey Phillips:

Yeah. Awesome. Thank you, Manny.


Tristi, I'm, I'm putting you on the, putting you on the spot and you didn't raise your hand, but that's, you know, I love doing that. I know we have a joke about that, but Tristan, what was your perspective from the e tc meeting that you got to attend



Tristi Charpentier:

Now, Casey, why don't you wanna put me on the stop like that because you, you have, you have huge and great things to say.


Yeah. So that was a busy day. And I will say that one of the things that I remember most from that meeting was a stat that oh, who, who t throughout the stat, was it Tonnisha? Who was it? It was somebody who talked about the low rates of secondary degree attainment. So all the people who are going to your two-year, four-year colleges we're only graduating like maybe 25 or 30%.


It's something like that. I'd have to look back at my notes to remember exactly what it was, but it's, it's a travesty that we have that many people who are spending a lot of money on their two and four-year degrees and not completing them cuz then they're saddled with that debt. Yeah. That the E2C meeting was like, I mean it was a part of the share, you know, part of the exercise was these data points and I mean, they were just mind-blowing things that were said inside the room, both inspiring and a tad bit infuriating.


Any of the members of our leadership council, Alfredo Dean Andrews anything that you maybe want to lift up to the group that you observed from the meetings?


Okay, we'll hold that space and if it is something that you do wanna do, just come off on mute. One more thing before we get to the community announcements. You know, one of the, we see really with CAFE, this has been discussed a lot. You know, there's a lot of people who are either doing food shares or they're doing health fairs and, you know, there's just a, a cross coordination issue in, in the parish, right?


As far as everybody is aware of what's going on. And I think it would be really great as we roll into community announcements if anybody on this call knows of any events that are coming up in the summer, right? It doesn't have to be this weekend, doesn't have to be next week, but in the summer, that kit, whether it is you know, again, food shares or health fairs, if it's something around education, if there's anything about career fairs, if there is anything on symposiums around the future of.


Transportation from, you know, pedestrian-friendly sidewalks and walkable communities, all the way to, you know, getting the ticket to be on to ride on top one of the rockets to go to Mars in a couple of years. You know, I said anything that's happening during the summer that you would like to lift up, whether it's your organization or you know of something, and then we'll go into normal community announcements.


Anything that anybody knows of?

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Community Announcements





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