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.
Was there a meeting you missed? Looking for an update? Well, this week we will be diving into the three drivers whose coalitions have fully launched!
Learn with us and read what's new with the Capital Area Food Equity, Education to Career, and Transportation and Mobility Coalitions!
Notes
Casey Phillips: The City of Baton Rouge more than one time and actually reviewed it. Tia, right on. Good for you. I did it once.
Manny Patole: You mean for a current session or for in previous years?
Casey: I'm just saying previous years. It said if you've actually opened the city budget before it got approved by the city council and you've done it multiple times. Okay, Mary has, Tia has. And to your point, Adonica, could you make your point again? Because I think it's like gospel truth.
Adonica Pelichet Duggan: Yeah I think right now we're in the budget process for these financial school board. And they'll approve their budget. They have to have it approved by law by September. But, they're hosting a series of community meetings, and if we really want to get into how we're serving students in the community, I would just encourage people to pay attention because budgets are statement of priorities and if we're going to really get down into how we're serving kids. We have to make sure that we have our resources in the places that we need them. And, for us, that starts with making sure you have a great educator in front of every student and prioritizing that in the budget. So just encouraging folks to get involved in the budget process and pay attention.
Casey: And Adonica where are we in the superintendent search for your PSS? What's the on the timeline wise?
Adonica: Yeah, the superintendent application is scheduled to close. I think on June 10th, there's some question about whether or not they met the legal requirement to have the application open for 30 days if they close on June 10. so on or around June 10th will be the close of applications and then the board leadership will narrow to a set of finalists who they will bring for interview before the public.So great. That's where hopefully we'll get somebody great in that seat sooner rather than later so that we can make sure that they are in place in a permanent way to make decisions for the start of school.
Casey: Yeah, no doubt, which is right around the corner. It's yeah, just right around the corner.
And that's yeah. Anyway, you don't get to it. You don't get to wait for perfect to make things happen. And I don't know if that's the case everywhere, but welcome to One Rouge on Friday. I feel like that is a good level set Pepper, Tia and to all of our co chairs here today. Welcome. Welcome to space. Pepper. How are you feeling today? And what's at the top of your mind?
Pepper Roussel: I am never letting perfect be the enemy of the good, is what sprang to mind in that moment, and so thankful to hear it, because every now and again, I too get caught up in wanting things to be exactly right but sometimes, just starting what do you say, half done? Half, once begun is half done, that's how it goes, and We are beginning this Friday call, as always, with a thank you for being here and spending part of your Friday morning with us. You know how much I love you spending your time here, and people like Rodneyna, who are going to be leaving the city, as she announced last week. We will need to make as much opportunity as we can to spend with y'all. And, just to give some love to each other, because sometimes it's a little hard. But that's also part of what the coalitions are for, is to support each other in these initiatives as we try to, I like to say, make some shit shake. Last week we had our in person meetings. What was the week before? I don't know, time's an illusion. And we always start on Tuesdays with education to career, because Learning does not stop at the end of 10th grade, and it's your career goals and your job and your work and what you do for a living probably begins before you graduate. I am going to step aside and allow our co chairs Adonica and Dustin, to give us an overview of what happened at the coalition meetings last week. And or Casey, because he was also, or we'll present her who was also there.
Adonica: I was just going to say I had to defer to my colleagues because I was traveling last week and had to miss. But that's the great thing about this coalition is there's so many people who are engaged in the work. So when you have to miss 1, it's not the end of the world.
Casey: Yeah, that was I was actually going to say I was like so welcome everyone to the space is the quick education to career coalition update. Our co chairs have forward. I believe we're around rounding the corner on 3 years right into building the infrastructure and in the cadence. And now our meetings with the education to career are really very systemized now. There's a, there's an open source worksheet that where we have our goals for the coalition, we have our milestones, tasks are assigned, people are assigned to them, groups of people, one person, and, a due date, and we're consistently checking in between the quarterly meetings. Meetings both in monthly zooms and separate meetings to make sure that those are moving forward. And I'm really happy to report that the literacy group as it continues to move forward, even when the, the work group leader is not there, the work continued and, and then also, though, we started the meeting talking about, not only are we knocking out tasks and milestones, but now the intentionality of, Of the intersectional nature of one Rouge and specifically education and career really came to a head after all these months of these meetings, and I wanted to invite Jesse Watson into the space because he started our education to career meeting off with ultimately talking about our second goal of transforming some schools into community hubs, which is what Dustin is leading. So we're going to ask Jesse share the success story, a little bit of who he is, and then turn it over to Dustin to do an update on his group.
Jesse Watson: All right, good morning. First of all, thank you. Thank you case for the opportunity and the space to share out. What's happening specifically around our organization with Discovery Schools. As some may know, we are one year into Baton Rouge actually, as an organization, we actually have 5 physical locations and one online location. However our 1st physical space in Baton Rouge opened up in August of this past year and to help us get integrated in the space, one rouge has really helped us tremendously just being able to jump in on these calls on each and every Friday and specifically around as we think about our school, actually serving as a community hub. One thing that we've been able to do as far as being integrated in the community, was to again, make sure that we're on these calls, but specifically a few weeks ago there was a call out from one of the groups on the One Rouge call mentioning that space was needed for specific. The around kind of housing for a summer camp. I gladly followed up on the call. It was actually a cancer services and I'm not sure if Nancy and Lori on the call now, but I followed up and long story short, the Discovery will be able to house a summer camp that actually houses around 50 students. I'm sorry, 50 kids that are receiving services through cancer services. And we're proud to offer our space. And that's just one connection that's been made of many throughout these calls on Fridays. Another thing that we're doing within our school is to make sure that we've reached out to the Jones Creek business association and we're pretty active within that association. And we actually held a big fair a few weeks ago, and we're able to allow several vendors and individuals to not only visit our campus, but also to be active within a few other things that we have coming up within our organization, but also as we schedule out like tabletop discussions to make sure that and exercises within our school to make sure that one safety is a priority. We've connected with different agencies throughout Baton Rouge, between our specifically around the the sheriff's department as well as the fire department. And they're actually utilizing our space as a training space for emergency services. So those are just a few things that are happening. We're looking to be the really the exemplar as far as what's possible and I'd love to engage with those that I haven't gotten had a chance to engage with that are on the call now. If we are, if we could be of service or our space, if we could connect in any way, I'd love to connect with you and I'll drop my information in the chat shortly.
Casey: Dr. Watson, thank you, sir. And for being the first to raise their hand to say yes, and to be able to start demonstrating the model as said that others can also follow suit and make sure and please tell principal that I said, hello good people. Dustin, I said, would you like to build on the success of your working group and just share out a little bit more?
Dustin LaFont: Yeah, just to be brief Jesse said a lot and that was really fantastic that he stepped into the plate to give us this opportunity to learn about schools as community hubs. But we're still working on doing landscape assessment. We really want to find a way to get as much information about who is doing work in schools, who's doing services, what are they providing? There's a lot of different people who are in schools. So what was the track to get there and how's it working out? Also getting feedback from principals in this landscape assessment. We're looking at expanding digital access considering what it looks like as K 12 spaces for learners and making those accessible to others. So these are all just our milestones with some action items that we got further clarification, got more people at the table. last week to really pick up these tasks and help us move forward. So we're in good shape. Looking forward to what comes next.
Casey: I was just saying more nice things about it. Adonica and Dustin. So I'm glad I was on view. But anyway, I said they really help set the pace for the rest of the coalition and the rest of the working groups. And I said in one of the working groups that quite frankly, I said, has their early childhood. And early childhood learning. Everyone who's working in the space is fighting for the lives of kids right now through this last session. This is a relatively small network of humans and organizations that have dedicated their careers to fighting for our babies, right? Truly. And every single year, then they get a win. They have to go back and fight to get the wind back. And I said, and it's been incredible to watch all these organizations work on a statewide level. And so on the local level inside of our working group, and this is the transparency of the process. The early childhood group is one of them that we're trying to like really get. more direction, more traction on more engagement on. So if you're looking to invite more of those folks into the space, we welcome it. But Tia was sitting at the table last week and maybe you can give an update on the progress of that.
Tia Fields: Yes. So good morning and happy Friday, One Rouge family. With education to careers, early education early childhood education's working group, we discussed that same day the state had restored the 24 million that was taken from the seat. And then just a couple of days ago there was talks on getting the house to make sure that they keep the restored funds and just pushing, really just pushing Knowing that there's less than 15 percent of child care Children who are receiving care, and we just needed to make sure that everybody that has a part in early childhood education is sitting at the table. The main talks that we had on was being able to distinguish the difference between early childhood education and, excuse me. Give me one second. I got to go through my notes. One second, guys. A clear distinguishing between early childhood education and primary education. We had a few educators sitting at the table. Some of them were daycare providers and others were PK three and kindergarten, and they were just speaking on how Children who are entering into P. K. One and kindergarten there. They don't have the basic foundations of education. The one, two, threes and a B. C. S. We also were talking about our statewide efforts. Go far. Louisiana is a great partner that we're doing some work with to see because they're working on the advocacy level and policy. Scan is another organization that has partnered with one Rouge in terms of bringing us information as it relates to policy and all we can ask is that as Casey said before, if you have anyone that's in an early childhood education space to invite them here so that we can hear what's going on and how we can be beneficial to each other in this movement.
Casey: Thank you, Tia. I appreciate you. And thank you for the update. And in the spirit of time, because we are at a time for our group, and I want to. be able to move it on. I want to make sure and thank Esperanza, who was there for the continuous learning group. Miss Valenzuela continues to engage at a heavy clinic. And then also for the continuous learning Our workgroup lead BJ from LCTCS has been incredible and working really closely with BRCC. So my main update to give is that BRCC has done a tremendous job. Tremendous amount of work around aligning their certification and for credit departments. As a result of a lot of this intersectional conversation over the last 4 years, and they're all like, working really closely on how to map out both, no cost to low cost. To actual credit offerings for individuals that want that have, graduated high school and we're looking to make their next steps within the BRCC and Louisiana Technical College system. But also, beyond that, we're also obviously there is all of the landscape of. Employ BR and all the other training providers. And one of the things that really, we had a powerful moment with Tramiel Howard, not that was in any kind of way, shape or form. Surprising Tramiel, like really re centered the beginning of the workforce journey with the youth, and the blatant disrespect that is inflicted upon the young people in our community as they come through the education system with their voice being nowhere at the table. And constantly in the way that messages are delivered to them, whether it's around summer internships whether it's around any kind of opportunities around workforce outside the tradition, going post secondary, the messenger in the message seems to be very important. Tone deaf and multi and often not culturally competent and we wonder why we continue to run through the same issues over and over. So I thought that was like, a really powerful moment to center the table. That workforce continuum really gets disrupted and it gets disrupted really early. Because it's just a lot of misinformation or information that's not really hitting and certainly not meeting young people where they are. So the continuous learning group continues to make yeah, continuous learning continues to make really great strides. And Pepper, thanks for the space. Our co chairs, I am eternally grateful. And everybody that has been showing up and really stepping up into the work. We, one rouge gratitude.
Pepper: While we are on the subject, before we move too far talking about those folks who were at Education2Career, Camilla has posted on the LinkedIn the linking of editness that she has been accepted to LSU's law school. Congratulations to Camilla. Additionally, Things I learned last week. Esperanza, are you still around here? Where'd she go? There she is.
Esperanza Zenon: I'm sorry. I'm driving, but yeah no.
Pepper: With, I will look for it then and drop it in. Of course I will look for it and then drop it in the chat things. I learned last week because Esperanza was listed as easy. And so I started calling her easy, which just entertains me. But speaking of, but in the same vein as music, she does music reviews on the YouTube. So for those of you. For those of you who have a burning question about what is this band? What is this music and where does it come from? I really supporting my people. Please go to her, ask her on the like I said, I will find it since she's driving and drop it in the chat. Go to her. I can, I, you got it? Yay! So that we can expand her channel. It's not for money. It's for funsies. But we all have some sort of a connection in some way, shape, or form.So in some way, shape, or form. And so I am absolutely thrilled that we do. And she also does another one with her son, which is about sports, but that's beyond my comprehension. But! Those are things that I learned in education to career, and there was even more to learn at Cafe that happened on Wednesday. As y'all know, we have, my food friends, Jan and Nichola, are leading the fight for summer feeding. But I will turn over the microphone to Helena, who, if y'all haven't noticed, has also changed her last name on the Zoom ed ness. But since she hasn't made the announcement, I will let her do to talk about cafe.
Helena Sato: Thanks, Pepper. Yeah, and I recently got married, so my new last name is Sato. Helena Sato, thank you. Yeah, so last week with CAFE we were able to go over everything that has happened since the February meeting, which actually has been a lot of movement, especially around the summer feeding. So we have a series of updates in buckets of Areas of feeding. So the first one we're gonna go over is the 18 and below feeding, which Nichola, I know Nichola's driving right now too, so I can plug in where you aren't able to. But if you wanna get started and I'll cover your bases.
Nichola Hall: Yeah, sure. Hi, good morning everyone. So before I start, I just wanted to share out just a moment y'all. I'm on my way to George to remove her off a ventilator. So see now we're here for a funeral arrangement tomorrow. And the reason I'm bringing that up, because we still, we get lost into the day-to-Day grind and fight and not realizing that we're not taking care of home base and not taking the moment to stop, reflect, and celebrate life as it's I just wanna share out and elevate the fact that at some point we gotta breathe. And that goes for me a reminder to and check in and make sure that our family, our support system is intact. Alright, so moving on so the Child Nutrition Program, our 18 and below feed in, we have made tremendous stride in this work. We have about 108 and counting sites about 60 percent are school sites, the others are community sites. We are a non profit organization. We have one rural feed insight that city Northeast. Elementary school. And we also have a number of mobile sites. Which include housing. Authorities and libraries. Stop on selective dates to provide a lunch on the go. So with that being said, it was a major uphill battle with collaborating between three entities, One Rouge, EBR and the mayor's office. A major shout out to Helena. She had to do a three point shot from the half court line with the Google map because we were waiting on the Google mapping system from the mayor's office and it didn't come to fruition at the time that Lunches we need to share out the press release so that we are going to start. We will start on The 28th through august 2nd, so she chopped it up real quick and threw something together Which came out to be beautiful as always and about two weeks later. We're here with the mayor's map So i'm pretty sure Helena have it in the chat somewhere it's still under revision because we want to make sure that the information that we're sharing out You Is accurate as be because we are a heavily compliant monitored audit system, and we don't want any red flags so they could come and shut us down and the work that we have done goes away. Okay, that's pretty much it from the zero to 18. One major big thing that I want to share it about the meal, the rural side yesterday was the first day. We served about 200 families, I thought it was 300, 303 families signed up on only 200 showed up and we provide four days worth of meals, which makes me feel good that we were able to take care of kids to provide meals. Thursday through Sunday, and we'll be back again on Monday to do it all over again for three days. So I just wanted to share that out. Thank you, Helena, for allowing me to do this and the OneRouge team.
Helena: Thank you so much, Nichola. Yeah, and I think this just goes to show when in CAFE and in OneRouge, when we have something that we can help amplify as a coalition and push forward, we were able to connect. Outside external partners who are doing summertime activities and met the qualifications to become a feeding site able to connect them to the school system so that they can get the food provided for them and get on boarded for that. And also another win with this was I don't know if you remember in January, one of our One Rouge calls that we had on a Friday was about the fact that Louisiana had not yet opted into the USDA summer EBT allocation. And so we pressed really hard as a coalition and everyone as individuals. To see that being pushed forth because the extra money for the snap benefits for families, which is 120 per child is extremely important for those who aren't able to get to the summer feeding locations, or just need that food at home. And it has ultimately been passed. And now we have sunbucks. And Tia, I know you also have some good information on sunbucks but the rundown that I have is that it's 120 per child for the entirety of the semester sent out in phases. June 1st is the first month that it's pushed into the cards for families already enrolled in SNAP, so you should see the that extra benefit on your card by June 1st. July 1st, families with children in those special groups like Medicaid or TANF will start to receive those benefits, get those SNAP cards, and then July through August is when the DCFS should have applications open for sunbucks. And they said that they should be able to review them and get them through before the end of summer. And so it was really nice to have someone at DCFS at our table at our cafe so that we could ask these questions. But before I move on, Tia, is there anything that I that you can help add any more clarity to?
Tia: Just the fact that those who are already receiving those services that Helena mentioned, the funds will automatically be awarded to the card that the parent has. But if the child is not receiving SNAP benefits, Medicaid or TANF, or the free reduced benefits, then the parent will need to apply and a new EBT card will then be issued. The former PEBT cards will not have any funds loaded on them. So if parents are expecting the funds to be loaded on that card, it's important for them to know that card will not be able to be used and that they will have to either use their existing EBT card or an apply to get a new one.
Helena: And I've seen also said that it's important for all families to check if they already have a card to make sure their mailing addresses are up to date just in case a new card gets sent.
Tia: And one last part to that it will be the school that will send the information to DCFS so making sure that the address with the school is correct in order to receive the benefits.
Helena: And they did mention that daycare is included as well as the School site that can send that information. All right. Moving through. So I think it was Nichola briefly mentioned it but I'm talking about just the outreach and the push of information around summer feeding. We've been able to get. Billboards in through Lamar, those digital billboards out as well as the city of Baton Rouge helped us send out some press releases. So we've been able to have news coverage. Hopefully you've seen it a few times of us talking about the summer feeding and how to find information. And as well, there was a podcast interview done. And yeah, and also just the Just because it's cool. The current the map that I did the Google map has like 22, 000 views, which I was really surprised by because last time I looked, it was only 12,000. So it's a huge uptick. So I'm really glad people are able to have something that they can use to get what they need for their families. So we have a, our next section is on the upcoming work that we are doing across the other groups, including 18 and below, but also 19 and above, or what we call all ages feeding. Jan, are you ready to cover that.
Jan Ross: Yeah. Thanks, Nichola. I'm sorry. Thanks, Helena. And also, Nichola, thank you very much for reminding us how important it is for us to stop, breathe, and also recognize how important family is to us. I hope all goes well with you and your family this weekend. But for as we go forward with our work with CAFE, we really will continue to have a focus. On feeding and in particular looking at as we're going into the future because though we're not even at June 1st, it's the fall already. So we really need to start planning for activities of the fall and that'll include weekend and holiday meals just to ensure that people continue to have consistent, healthy resources of food available to them. We do recognize that when it comes to weekend and holiday meals, that comes under different funding sources. Though funding sources are available, it is just a matter of qualifying for it. But because we have been so successful, just as Nichola has been describing a moment ago, successful in creating a process of getting families qualified for receiving the meals. And we also have a process and we have providers that are interested in providing the feeding that's in place. And so once we are able to gain the funding for the weekend and holiday meals, the process should be much easier. It will be important for us to continue to really market the availability of these resources, just to ensure that everyone, not only the kids, but all individuals know that resources are available, but also in a focus on the all individual feeding or and in particular 19 and above ensuring that they do one have resources and that we are able to get that information out to them. This coalition does continue to have a focus on that. And this coming quarter, we will continue to work on that area. The other area that we will be focusing on is teaching to grow. That is one of the goals of this coalition and and so we continue to focus on that. With a focus on teaching those that we might call backyard gardeners or hobbyists to ensure that they have education and have resources available to have that food on their plate. But for those that provide food for other plates, As in more formal farmers, what can we do to ensure that they have the resources that are needed to ensure that everyone has the appropriate supply of food available to them? And I say food generally, but that is always with a recognition that when we talk food that we're only talking about healthy food and making sure that people have really what helps them to be You know, a healthy person individually. So recognize when we talk food, we're talking healthy. But when it comes to farmers are there opportunities that can be created to really help to support an incubator? Or maybe something like Jones Valley Teaching Farm out in Birmingham. That would be great benefit to our community to really help support young or entrepreneurial level farmers to make sure that they have the resources that they are needed in order to provide those resources of food for others plates. And then another thing that we will be working on is continue to create a database of resources that are available for those that are in the growing arena. Helena, that is what I have. Anything else that you wanted to add for that?
Helena: I think that's a really great summation and I and also with the partnership with the city of Baton Rouge in this and Healthy BR with this mapping system we're hoping to continue to add resources through that mapping system so it's not just the summer feeding it doesn't stop there. The goal is to continue to gather the data. So if you are an organization that does snap on boarding if you're an organization that serves meals. I think that's Doesn't matter the days of the week or the times of the week. If you get me that information, I'll start creating it so that we can try and create this one stop shop for people looking for food access.
Casey: And I just wanted to, I just wanted to make sure, thank you to everyone for the update and the incredible progress the cafe has made. Whoa, man, it has been, that has been a process y'all. And I said, the evolution of cafe and the amount of heartbeats that have been poured into this and all the success from the last couple of months. I just couldn't be any happier and more gratitude. And I want to make sure and say thank you. Thank you to Kelli Rogers, right? With Go Get Healthy for five years of carrying that work forward. That's like kind of at the center of CAFE and being that link between the mayor's office and HealthyBR and Nichola with EBRPSS and all the community advocates in One Rouge. Kelli's a quiet storm, but she is a force of nature, nonetheless. Kelly, I just wanted to make sure.
Kelli Rogers: Thanks, Casey.
Pepper: Kelli, me and Carl were just sitting and talking about growing food. I could not have been happier. Thank you all so much for coming and hanging out with us last week. Those of you who were there on Thursday, we talked about, we talked transportation and mobility, Tia, if you wouldn't mind giving us an overview of all of the fascinating things that you said. Like the history, I'm going for the history because it was really pretty. Do that. Please let us know what's going on with TNM.
Tia: Sure. Before I get started, we'll say that we are actively looking for 2 co chairs for transatlantic mobility so that we can reach great stats like CAFE as well as education to career. So we started off with just going over the ground framework, which is using the collective impact 3. 0 model reintroducing it. So that those who are sitting at the table understood the way that we're going to be moving the work forward in a collaborative measure. We talked a little bit about the history of transportation and how it has involved, throughout the history of Baton Rouge one that I like to highlight is 1953, the bus boycott and how the citizens were able to mobilize to get some things done. And I'm looking forward to be transformative in that way. We were able to complete a SWOT analysis just to get a consensus of What the coalition members thinking what, what the thoughts were on around where we are and where we can move forward. And one of the key takeaways that I've seen was that we want to amplify CATS as a partner and not looking to target them as the main issue with transportation because we do know There are multiple modes of transportation that we use daily. We had a representative from CRPC that was there. They have a new coalition called Commuters Crew where they are giving incentives if you're doing ride share or van sharing to where you can earn up to 50. So it was just a lot of information that was given and looking for more people to come to the table as well as I mentioned the co chairs, we do need that in order for the work to get done and just to have a little bit more structure, but it wasn't extensive. That was just about it.
Pepper: It was not extensive, but we were small and mighty. We did have an opportunity, which is interesting, right? So when we talk about transportation, for the most part, we have a tendency to talk to think about transportation just with streets, right? Whether it be a car or a bike, or even walking down a sidewalk, but we also had the airport at the table, trying to understand how it is that they can leverage some of our resources, meaning. You human resources through the coalition, what does it look like for them? And how can they make their situations that much better? And yes, I echo sentiment. Thank you. I echo to your sentiment. We do need some co chairs and the note that she just dropped in the chat for those of you who are thinking to yourself. The airport, I don't know if but BTR has a direct flight to D.C. For those of you who are thinking to yourself, you know what I would like to do is to spend some time on Capitol Hill, just chatting with my legislators about how it is we need more funding in the city of Baton Rouge. You can get there. Direct and the flight's not that expensive. So ultimately the, one of the things that they were talking about is, we need more butts in seats. We need for people to actually utilize the Baton Rouge airport. What I thought was really interesting is that if you do a price comparison between the drive to New Orleans. The, or even taking some sort of a car, somebody driving you there, the time that's involved, the parking, the getting a rental, the, all of the things that go into actually flying out of MSY as opposed to BTR, you are not really saving. You're not really saving anything, right? And if you go out of BTR, not only are the not only are the the ride shares cheaper trying to get there, but also parking is cheaper here into our invite. Just as an FYI, I'm just saying. I have no control over whether they have Southwest. I'm just going to let you know that. But I do want to get away and I'm just going to put that out there. Yeah. Last week we had, I like just as a recap, ETC that met on Tuesday cafe, which is for food meeting on Wednesday and then on Thursday. Also true Flitcher Bell also on Thursday, transportation, mobility and as, last thing, the line is never that long as BTA, BTRs, TSA, as opposed to in New Orleans, it's a crap shoot and if you don't have free Jack, hang it up. We do, though, have a couple of our leadership coalition folks, if y'all wouldn't mind waving to waving pretty to the crowd and let me know if you want to share any of the things that y'all have planned, not necessarily that, we've that we've completed them all, but how it is that we are thinking that we might be directing One Rouge.
Katie Prichett: Okay hey, everyone can preach it. So I am on. If you are not familiar, the leadership coalition is working on 3 specific areas. So capitalizing on our future. Inspiring informed leadership and maximizing assets, the resource development. I have been helping with the capitalizing on our future and in that we're trying to come up with a funding landscape of what are the funding sources available to support this kind of work. Not just the work of the coalition overall, but then also support the work of each of the individual. Drivers of poverty as well, and so looking at national local funding, what is this type of support mean? And then we should soon be coming out with a survey for all of the members that are part of the coalitions to say. What type of funding would you be interested in? Would you want to participate in collaborative funding with joint applications? Are you looking for funding? That's more operationally focused. Are you looking just for programmatic funding? What's your experience with federal grants versus, should we focus on local grants? And we're trying to think through all of that, and there will be surveys coming out soon to make sure that we're working in the direction that our members would like for us to go
Pepper: Gorgeous, thank you so much. Katie. The, again, the leadership of the One Rouge Coalitions really looking at it from a more structural perspective, right? How is it that we can actually do all of the things that we want to do? And we know sometimes that. Priorities compete and time is short. So we thank all of you who are part of all of the coalitions for the time and energy that you invest with us. We could not do it without you. Literally could not do it without you. Marcella, I see your hands up.
Marcela Hernandez: Good. Good morning. Good morning. How are you today? Okay. So I just wanted to know to let you know that I'm currently working on the calendar of activities for a summer enrichment camp. And I would like to invite us. I heard so many wonderful things and initiatives here. And I just wanted to say I am looking for inspirational speakers. I'm looking for. Workshops. I'm looking for anything that you might believe our campers enjoy and be interested in learning. So if you would like to come and be a guest speaker, I'm going to put my information in the chat. Please let me know. I'll be more than happy to schedule a good time. We're going to have two cohorts this year. One's going to be for elementary kids 30, 30 kids from elementary kids. And then we're going to have another cohort for middle school and high schoolers with 25 kids. So please, if you organization is doing something educational, meaningful that you think that our kids will benefit, please get in touch with me. I'll be more than happy to put down on our calendar of activities. And you guys have a great day. Thank you.
Pepper: That is the perfect segue into what else is going on this weekend in Baton Rouge, y'all.
Casey: That was quite a nice little off ramp into community announcements, for sure. Reverend Anderson, we're going to get right to you. I just want to make sure and say it again and reiterate it. Thank you all to everyone who comes to the in person meetings. It's so important because it really in that it level sets the entire quarter of work and keeps us going towards the North Star together. It's also great to share in that fellowship together, and I want to make sure and shout out Ann I think she's still here for providing all the delicious lunches throughout the week and making sure everyone's hydrated, even when it's hot outside. so much. And it's just really important and we really appreciate it and we hope to see everybody in June. On Zoom, little quick Zoom check ins in June and July while everybody is traveling. And I just want to make sure and give that big shout out before we go to the community announcements. So thank you all for being here and sharing the space today. And Reverend Anderson, blow our minds, inspire us, challenge us, and hello and good morning.
Reverend Anderson: Hi. Oh, sorry about that. Hi. Can everybody hear me? Yes. Yep. Sorry. It's been that kind of week. First of all, good morning. One rouge. Those of you who were aware knew last week I was in Chicago because I lost my best friend. And so I want to thank those of you who offered prayers and support. I have two announcements. One of them is very big, and it actually links into some of the reports that were done today. As many of we have a three digit code called 988. 988 is specifically for assistance with mental health crises. It is very specific. It is segmented so that if you are a youth, you can get youth specific help. If you are a veteran, you can get veteran specific help and so on. And it is critical That information get out to the community. And so as we are doing these feeding sites, as we are doing the summer camps, it is really a great opportunity to also put out the contact information for 988, and why it is so critical. Some of I am the Children and Youth Chair of the Louisiana Behavioral Advisory Council. And what we are seeing is that when people use 988, they get the kind of outcomes they're hoping for. And so it is critical. Also, in conjunction with that, we have an issue because we've had a hideous session, and one of the things that came out of the session was that now most of our children are going to need their parents to go to the libraries and get them new library cards, and again, that intersection with feeding sites and other places is a great opportunity to also remind parents that they need to go to their libraries and get new cards for their children. That was one of the outcomes of the election. Lastly, in that same vein, we have had a ridiculous number of people who have fallen off of the Medicaid rolls. Not because they're not eligible. But because of address and logistical things. And so again, when we are offering these sites where people are coming, it is a great time to partner, remind people that. So I wanted to share that. So we were calling it the three and one that. Pushing 988 pushing that parents and it is parents. So it's not the kids can do this. It's parents to get the updates on their library cards. And then also to remind people to get the updates on their Medicaid. The last thing I wanted to say is that on next Friday, I am so excited about this, a lot of bad things are happening in, as it regards, some of the things coming out of the legislature and particularly to children, we are offering a No entry symposium knowledge is power protecting our babies at the River Center Library. It's a full day training. SAMHSA is going to do a magnificent four hour training for adults who work with youth. On working with trauma impacted youth, and every child in Louisiana is trauma impacted, whether it is hurricanes, what is the fact that we are in the second generation of children who have all had school shooting drills. If it isn't the fires, if it isn't just the multitude of things that are part of our living it's a great training for anybody that's a camp counselor, that is a youth leader, that is a Sunday school teacher. If you intersect with children it is just a wonderful opportunity. And so that's going to be at the River Center Library next Friday from 9:30 to 4:30. It is absolutely free. People just need to register. So thank you so very much.
Pepper: Very good. Very good. Thank you. Oh, she's got her hair. Look at what's forever and just said All right. So from the chat we have kids fest is next week, June 8th There are links as well as world refugee and immigrant day registration I believe that is on June 22nd, Scotland Saturdays. Live at Amped concert series is continuing this Saturday, 5 to 8, celebrating black music. Schedule is also in the chat. Da alternative transportation, explore summer camp. You know what Tia I'm gonna need you to come up and you say some of these things, cause this is out of hand. Where'd you go? Where's that face?
Tia: Okay. I'm right here. So yes. Kids fest is next week. Scotlandville CDC won't be doing any Juneteenth events.This will be in the place of that. They are still looking for volunteers. So you can send an email to the email that's listed on there or scan the QR code. As I mentioned earlier with the transportation call with the commuters crew, they are offering an incentive. If you are a transit rider, van pulling or car pulling, then there is a summer free program brought to you by line for line break and another community member that's offering a kids basketball camp. That is completely free. So if you have Children who are still looking for spots for summer camps, I encourage you to reach out to line for line. And then, I just want to give a congratulatory clap for myself as well as Ms. Tekoah Boatner. We have both been accepted to the ULDI cohort number 10. Woohoo! Let's go! And that wraps up your community announcements from me.
Pepper: Okay you can wrap it up. I just want y'all to know that I'm famous! By proxy, because I know four people in the ULDF EBRPSS is hiring all positions, but I will also bring your attention to the folks who've actually been on our call, as in, they have been featured speakers who are also in cohort 10. Yay them. Yay us so thankful that we have access to and contributions from people who are leading in community and ways that. It is inspiring to others. All right college interns are needed at Lazers State Retirement System. Must be enrolled as a foot, so you, da. Jen, where are you? What does this mean? Oh, Tekoah, you had something important to say? Don't take away my fame. Please. I'm famous by proxy.
Tekoah Boatner: Good morning, y'all. Hi, Pepper. Good to see you, as always, and everyone else on the call. It's not coming up soon, but just wanted to put out an alert. At Youth Oasis, we are planning a mental health summit for LGBTQ plus youth. It'll be featured in LGBTQ plus mental health professionals. So it really is a lived experience all throughout trying to same deal with the entry symposium. If you work with LGBTQ plus babies on any level, you need to have this conversation. However, the call I'm putting out is we cannot do this if we do not get funding for it because we are still recovering from loss of funding. So if you would love to donate to that. To this event. It'll be on June 28th, or it's projected to be June 28th. Please reach out and help us help the babies because it's about to get hot, if it is hotter than it already is, and they need all the help that we can get, we can give them, and that's what we're trying to do. So thank You all.
Casey: Good morning Tekoah. Thanks for all that you do. And congratulations on ULDI good to see you. Jen, you were coming off mute. I just wanted to circle back to you.
Jen Tewell: Hey, I just put that in the chat in case y'all know of any college students that are looking for paid internship. It's with lasers doesn't need experience. And it's. Okay, pay. So that's it.
Casey: Cool. Thanks, Jen.
Pepper: Listen, 15 an hour for somebody who's living at home with all the rent and the lights and the other bills paid. And all you got to do is to pay for your gas, which is ridiculous. Expensive. I don't know the last time you went to a pump, but it's absurd again. 15 an hour to pay for gas and insurance. Not a bad deal. Thank you for dropping in for dropping that in the chat. I guess we'll have to reach out to lasers and ask them about the details. But otherwise. Thank you all for being here on this fun Friday morning. I cannot say enough how much I appreciate you spending part of your Fridays with us. Casey, any final words?
Casey: No, I was actually quite frankly, I was just distributing the college internship opportunity to a college student that I know is looking still for a summer job. Yeah, thanks, Jen. Appreciate that. The magic and Hey Katie, thanks for doing I just, we hadn't given the chance to respond. Hey, thanks for jumping in and starting that landscape and all the work that you are doing with the leadership council. I really appreciate it. And the follow up email as well was also awesome. So I appreciate you being so engaged in the work and anybody that I, that we did not get to see last week. We would love for you all to join us in August whenever we do reconvene in person. And it's really important that we get everybody to the table on the coalition work to be, keep it moving forward. So that's it. I said that was my final plea. Have a great weekend, everyone. And a happy Friday.
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