Aug 10, 2011

This past Friday, I expanded my volunteering horizons. Up until this point, my volunteer experiences have always been with other humans. But, as a lifelong animal lover, I’d wanted to do some work at a shelter for quite some time. ARNO was a perfect opportunity. The weather was a little nasty on Friday, but volunteers were out en masse, walking dogs. When I...

Jun 29, 2011

When you think of volunteering, you probably don’t think of coloring pictures of kittycats and tugboats. But that’s exactly how I spent my Saturday morning volunteering with STAIR. Along with 5 other volunteers, we colored, cut, and arranged different packets ofdrawings and vocabulary words. At one point, one of the volunteers asked, “Why are wecoloring these...

Jun 2, 2011

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the shortage of grocery stores in New Orleans. One group aiming to change that is the New Orleans Food Co-op. NOFC, which is scheduled to open its doors within a month, offers some unique opportunities to New Orleans. Its location in the old Universal Furniture building, on the corner of St. Claude and St. Roch, fills a...

We’re all pretty familiar with some variation of the stereotypical things to do in New Orleans list: the Quarter, the streetcars, various eateries (and drinkeries), etc. But what about those of us who are looking for things to do that aren’t quite so done, but still New Orleanian at their roots? Here are a few ideas. Free Swing Dancing Do you love to dance but...

(From L-R: Stephen Foley, Meredith Mullins, Nancy Schmitt, and Nancy Upton) “You never know who is living next door.” So say Girl Next Door Theatre, the newly formed New Orleans theatre group with a feminist take on the performing arts. Founded by Meredith Mullins and Nancy Schmitt, GNDT is focused on going beyond what they see as simplistic portrayals of women...