After nearly a year of planning, today was one of the most thrilling days so far for Historic Green's Spring Greening event: we received positive word on not 1 but 2 GRANTS! Amy King and so many other great people put together a great fundraiser yesterday evening, which has us now shown as a direct partner organization to the "Trouble the Water" group (this is a documentary about a Katrina family if you haven't seen it - up for several awards). The Kansas City fundraiser featuring Bob Berkebile was a huge success last week, with dozens more volunteers committing to the trip. After hearing that one of the Historic Green Advisors, Majora Carter, will be joining us in New Orleans to give a presentation, we have quickly begun thinking about hosting a huge crawfish cookoff in celebration of all that is going right in the Lower 9th Ward. We also have several trade organizations talking with us about donating time and labor: solar panel installers, green collar job trainers, energy raters, carpenters, masons, and much more! This event is finally gaining the steam I had hoped to see - energy that could easily spill over into more frequent action happening to reconstruct this great neighborhood sustainably! There is SO MUCH work left to do, but there is SO MUCH organizing behind us (not to mention some of the most inspired and hard-working people in the nation!) that we cannot help but succeed.
Check out these images of some of the PRC homes we worked on last year before and after:
