Fundraising plea or What am I doing?

Here at Bayou Blue Presbyterian Church I do a number of things from research, to advocacy to educational outreach. Bayou Blue partners with Project Homecoming (where my roommate works) every Wednesday when there are volunteers down (to help rebuild from Katrina) I either give a presentation or I take them out to Bayou Sauvage, a national wildlife reserve inside the city of New Orleans, on a boardwalk tour of the Bayou. I attend meetings with an organization called the Horizon Initiative (HI), they are a collection of business owners, nonprofit professionals, university researchers and professors and policy analysts concerned with issues surrounding how we handle our water in what we call ‘inside the levy’. The HI community has engaged with Dutch engineers to help us develop solutions to these issues that we can advocate for here in New Orleans. Everyone in the HI community understands that what happens inside the levy and how we deal with our water issues impacts people ‘down bayou’ or in rural southeastern Louisiana. These people live in communities that are typically not protected by levees or ‘outside the levy’. I mention the communities outside the levees because Bayou Blue Presbyterian Church is in one of those communities. That, by the way, is the short and easy description of what I do.

A crucial part of the YAV program is the fundraising that I have to do, this is important since the fundraising provides for our monthly stipend and rent. The program pays half and I have to fundraise the other half. This fundraising is important for a number of reasons, mainly because then I have to invite you in, into this year and this community. Which I have tried to do, perhaps not as successfully as I (or you) would have liked. But I still need help; I still have to raise $3265.00 before the beginning of August. If you would like to donate any amount is appreciated, as they say ‘every penny counts’.