CSED Staff Visits the Growing Power Conference 2012 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

http://www.growingpower.org/

Warrenetta, Vincent & I have just returned from the 2012 Growing Power Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin thanks to two scholarships provided by Will Allen, founder of Growing Power, and to Nat Turner, founder of Our School at Blair Grocery, who extended them to the CSED.  Thank you so much for your generosity and the opportunity to attend such an informative, inspirational and motivating gathering.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXZwh_Fuuxc                                                                   

http://schoolatblairgrocery.blogspot.com/p/about-osbg.html

How to Rebuild a Shotgun: Rebuilding Together in Holy Cross (VIDEO)

Excellent video via NBC News' "Paying It Forward" initiative - and featuring the work of Rebuilding Together New Orleans in the Holy Cross Neighborhood.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Transformation Courtesy of American Baptist Home Mission Society Volunteers - Thank You! Uncovering 5227 Chartres Street

Alive In You: Helping to Create Our 'Compost Garden'

We are forever grateful to the helping hands of endless volunteers who continue to come to the Lower 9th Ward to make a difference in our community. 

Recently, I had the pleasure to work with "Alive In You" youth mission group from Valley Ranch Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas.  For 2 days, these busy bees worked in the hot sun for hours helping my co-worker Charles Reddick and myself cut, clean, beautify, and add layers to our composting lots, and enhance our rain catchment system.  Along with Veteran Volunteer Steven Gonzales, who found lost treasure, they transformed our space and lifted our spirits. 

Thanks so much for helping us continue to move forward!

Lower 9th Ward "Views"

Lower 9th Ward "Views"

Community Conversations on Coastal Restoration

Join the National Wildlife Federation on Tuesday June, 19th at the New Orleans Healing Center at 2372 St. Claude Avenue. Free food will be provided and it is sure to be a laid back atmosphere with lively conversation! Join us!

Recognizing a Great Partnership Between Lower 9th Ward CSED and Sierra Club

Tracy Nelson, Executive Director of CSED and Robin Mann, Sierra Club President on the Bayou Bienvenue Triangle Platform (Caffin & Florida)

What a thrill it was for CSED to be recognized by an organization as well known and well respected as the Sierra Club. And it was an honor and delight to not only meet Michael Brune and Robin Mann but the board members of both the Sierra Club and the Sierra Club Foundation as well. The highlight for me was receiving the award out on the Bayou Bienvenue Triangle Platform where so many events, press conferences and influential people have gathered. This platform, built from the desire of the community to be reconnected to the water, shows how great collaborations can bring a project to fruition in situations where very little progress was originally anticipated. In partnership with the Sierra Club, the University of Wisconsin biology students, University of Colorado at Denver design students, Common Ground volunteers, CSED staff, residents and local carpenters, this platform has become a symbol of the ‘can-do attitude’ of one small community. Used daily by residents and visitors alike, the platform is a vital link for our community to the wetlands that border our neighborhood.

If you have not been to this special site within the Lower 9th Ward, it is located at the end of Caffin and Florida Avenue. If you come early in the morning you may, by chance, run into local resident John (Swamp Red) Taylor. John not only maintains the site for CSED but he is an endless wealth of knowledge about the wetlands and how it used to be when he was a coming up.

Left: John Taylor with young gator at site
Right: Bayou Bienvenue Triangle Platform

CSED Receives National Recognition for Sustainable Recovery Efforts

Left to right: Darryl Malek-Wiley (CSED & Sierra Club), Robin Mann (Sierra Club), Tracy Nelson (CSED), Michael Brune (Sierra Club), John Taylor (CSED), Charles Allen (City of NO), David Eber (CSED), and Aaron Mair (Sierra Club).

The Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development (CSED), founded in 2006 following the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, was honored Friday for the organization's initiatives to restore Bayou Bienvenue and the community since the storms. National Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune and President Robin Mann were on hand to present the award to CSED's executive director, Tracy Nelson, at the view platform overlooking Bayou Bienvenue.

The Times-Picayune's Katy Reckdahl covered the event in "Lower 9th Ward is making environmental strides, Sierra Club declares":

"Six years after it was enveloped by floodwaters, the Lower 9th Ward includes three urban farms and perhaps more “green” houses than any other neighborhood in the country. Alongside typical New Orleans pleas for more repaired streets and fewer blighted lots, Lower 9 residents now regularly lobby for sustainable development. They’ve also pushed to restore the long-neglected Bayou Bienvenue, which bounds the neighborhood on its Florida Avenue edge.

On Friday, the national environmental group Sierra Club cited these achievements as it honored one of the area’s post-Katrina engines, the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development.

“I think we’re turning a corner,” said the center’s former co-director, Charles Allen, who now is the city’s director of environmental affairs.

During the years after the failed Industrial Canal levees opened up onto the Lower 9th Ward, Allen and co-director Pam Dashiell, who died in 2009, worked from dawn to dusk organizing neighbors, pushing for structurally sound levees and demanding environmentally sensitive construction.

The Sierra Club gathered on the bayou on Friday to highlight achievements and future challenges. The group, with the support of Lower 9 neighbors, is pushing to get the restoration of Bayou Bienvenue included in the master plan drafted last month by the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, organizer Darryl Malek-Wiley said." READ MORE >>

Sierra Club's National Director to Honor CSED's Bayou Work

Tomorrow, Friday February 24th, at 1:30pm at the Bayou Bienvenue Platform (located at Caffin and Florida ave.), National Executive Director of The Sierra Club Michael Brune and Sierra Club Board Chair Robin Mann will honor the CSED for their efforts to create a sustainable recovery for the Lower 9th Ward and CSED's understanding that one can't rebuild the community sustainably without restoring the natural environment too.

Please join us!