Volunteering in New Orleans: Covid Addition

    March: 4.5 hours  For the month of March, I decided to team up with SOUL NOLA and the Young Leadership Council. SOUL NOLA stands for Sustaining Our Urban Landscape, and it is a NOLA-grown nonprofit organization committed to driving a more resilient and environmentally equitable New Orleans by reforesting or urban landscape. The Young Leadership Council (YLC) is a group of members that develop leadership skills through community service that makes New Orleans a better place to live, work, and play. SOUL's initiative is even more pronounced locally as a large amount of vegetation was decimated in Katrina and, as we are all very aware, New Orleans is a city that floods. SOUL does weekly plants throughout the year and our partnership for this event was dedicated to the Central City/Uptown area. Volunteers planted trees in groups across the region. The volunteers met at SOUL NOLA's base sight, where we split into groups and were handed shovels, pitch forks, mattocks and gloves.

 February total hours: 6 For the month of February, this year is a lot different in New Orleans due to the pandemic and the cancellation of Mardi Gras. New Orleans as a city has been through a lot in the past year, and although our city is resilient, we can all agree that this is a time in which we all need a helping hand.  Amidst the hard times, natives of New Orleans came together in the middle of the pandemic and started the group- New Orleans Community Fridges, which is a website as well as a virtual social media platform that is led by community initiative placing. There are over sixteen locations of fully functioning refrigerators that are placed in safe areas around New Orleans. When I first saw this, I was not surprised by how sweet and unique the idea was. As long as the addresses of the locations of fridges became more loud and proud, more locations were added. The way the NOLA fridges work are very simple: go to your nearest community fridge, and try to make sure it is fully