Ah! A lot has happened, sorry I haven't really been keeping up with my blog. Last week was the Night Out Against Crime and the Circle Food 4 Thought Campaign Kick-off, both of which went really well, and then my parents and brother Tommy came to visit for the weekend. This all left me thoroughly stuffed with action and really good food!
For Circle Food 4 Thought photos (and all the others I've taken down here) go to:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2100092&id=2911230&l=2a6271d825
Night Out Against Crime (Tuesday, August 4th) is a national day to support community solidarity in the face of criminal activity in their neighborhood, so there were block parties happening all over the city/country. I went to one sponsored by Neighbors United a few blocks from the NHS Main Office, where I helped the Freret Neighborhood Center pass out free backpacks full of school supplies that were donated by the Salvation Army. And here is where my week of awesome food began: I had grillades and grits, which was really delicious.
The very next day (Wednesday, August 5th) was the Circle Food 4 Thought Kick-off Event. I spent the hours before the event started helping to hurridly put labels on 2,500 postcards so that people could sign one for each of 3 City Council representatives asking for the city's support in reopening Circle Food Store. Printing and sticking address labels is tedious work, as was much of the work I did in the weeks prior (calling people to invite them to a task force meeting, calling them again to tell them it was cancelled, calling a bunch more people to invite them to the event, researching press-release opportunities...), but when everything came together, the resulting event went really well. 350+ people attended, there was motivational speaking, postcard signing, a brass band, dancing, and of course, fresh local foods! My parents arrived just as the event was ending, in time to get some really delicious shrimp, watermelon, snoballs and lemonade.
Thursday morning, I met with David and Linda about a newer project of mine--NHS is in the process of revamping their website, and while they have hired a company to help with this, they still need to write their own copy. Or should I say, they still need to have an intern write their copy? I've started out by editing a bunch of marketing stories they've collected and highlighting areas that could use more information--these can go both on the website and in other publications. I will also be collecting/writing more stories, since so far they don't have any about success they've had with the neighborhood centers. The website also needs descriptions of NHS services, what each department does, information on how to buy/renovate a home, etc, which I will be working with the appropriate staff people to write.
Thursday afternoon and Friday I took off to spend time with my family--by the time they left on Tuesday, we had eaten po-boys, walked around the French Quarter and French Market, eaten beignet at Cafe Dumonde, taken a ghost tour and a swamp tour, eaten gumbo and seafood, and visted the Audobon Zoo. My dad and I also spent Saturday in Gentilly working on a house with the Episcopal Disaster Recovery organization, and later that day met up with my mom and Tommy to attend a performance by the Urban Bush Women leadership conference that's been going on this week (sponsored by NHS/7th Ward Neighborhood Center). It was kind of crazy, but overall a pretty awesome time.
Now I'm back at work following up with the campaign kick-off by sorting all the postcards that were signed and entering all the new contact information we got from sign-in sheets into an excel document, and then into our gmail account so that we can invite people to the next task force meeting for the campaign. And of course, not everyone has email, so I will probably have to call all the people who said they were interested but didn't give an email address.
For relaxation, tonight there is a free yoga class at the Freret Neighborhood Center!
No comments:
Post a Comment