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Community service in New Orleans:
Help us rebuild

THURSDAY PROJECT:
On Thursday, we will work on a painting/beautification project at Frederick Douglas High School at 3820 St. Claude Ave in the Bywater neighborhood.  Our local partner needs to provide some orientation and instruction (we may be painting and/or assembling furniture), so specific start times are necessary; Volunteers may begin at 10am or at 1pm, ideally for 3-4 hours.  The project will wrap up by 4pm.  Janet Ruscher (ruscher@tulane.edu) is the local point person for this project.   The school is on a public bus route, or is accessible by cab (Please trust me that it is not walkable from the hotel).  If enough of us are going back and forth at the same time, I may be able to charter us a school bus to-and-fro…so an RSVP with your intended start time is especially important).

SUNDAY PROJECT:
On Sunday, we will work with The ARC of Greater New Orleans & Audubon Nature Institute from 12:00 –3:30 at their mansion at 5700 Loyola Avenue in the uptown area near Tulane University and Audubon Park.  The Arc serves people with intellectual disabilities of all ages.  They are working with Audubon this summer on a fundraiser at the Aquarium's new Parakeet Pointe exhibit, selling feed sticks.  Their need for volunteers consists of working alongside mentally and physically challenged individuals to create bird feeder sticks which will be sold by volunteers at the Aquarium for $1/each to raise money for the Audubon Nature Institute. The mansion is 1 block off the St. Charles streetcar line (the Nashville Avenue stop; the iron gate says ARC). Laurie O'Brien (lobrien2@tulane.edu) will be our local point person for this project.  Please plan to arrive for 12 to allow a single orientation and instruction with Miss Jane, the proprietor.  [If you need to leave before 3:30, that is fine: the streetcars run continuously].

ADDITIONAL/ALTERNATIVE OPPORTUNITY:
We learned of an additional opportunity on Thursday at Frederick Douglas High School that may be of interest to some of the membership: The Project Excel Tutoring Program there is hosting summer youth projects (jr high and h.s. level).  From 1pm – 3pm on that day will be an anti-violence curriculum consisting of teachings and discussion on issues surrounding violence: from perspectives of looking at different symptoms of violence, how people project different behaviors, how to break the cycle of violence.  Our partner Eric doesn’t know yet what their exact curriculum will be on that day, but considering the background of the conference attendees, he thought this might be interesting to some.  If there were one or two, or a small group, of people who were interested in presenting on the causes of violence in society to the student group, he would welcome that.  Of course, they’d like to know in advance what the presentation would cover to prepare for the rest of the session and make sure it wasn’t already discussed. He’d also like to open up the discussion for others who’d simple want to attend.   If anyone is interested in presenting about violence to this younger audience, please let me know by June 14th (ruscher@tulane.edu).