NEWS RELEASE: Workshop for Students today to help cope with and stop violence in New Orleans

Workshop for John Dibert Community School Students today to help cope with and stop violence in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS, LA, Friday, January 20, 2012 – Today Dancingman504 is doing two Heal2Toe (http://heal-2-toe.com/) dance workshops with students at John Dibert Community School.  Heal2Toe is a form of traditional dance and music, based on the New Orleans culture of ‘2nd Line’ parades.  The workshop, part of the “Move to Move On” approach, is taking place to give students an outlet in response to the recent and ongoing violence in the city. 

 

The Workshops will focus on:

• The power that students have to be safe and have a future full of options
• Having pride in their city, New Orleans
• Why the world is attracted to New Orleans culture
• How and why movement is important – inviting students to take part in movements that can calm the body and mind
• What students can do to stop the violence

The workshops will take place from 2:30-4:30pm at John Dibert Community School, 4217 Orleans Avenue.  For more information, or to attend one of the workshops, please contact Rebekah Cain at 504-952-1331 or rcain@firstlineschools.org. 

John Dibert Community School

At John Dibert Community School, we will prepare all our students to attend a college-preparatory high school, graduate from a selective college and contribute positively to their community and environment.

FirstLine Schools

The mission of FirstLine Schools is to create and inspire great public schools in New Orleans.  FirstLine currently operates Samuel J. Green Charter School, Arthur Ashe Charter School, John Dibert Community School, Langston Hughes Academy, and Joseph S. Clark Preparatory High School. 

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NEWS RELEASE: Volunteers Needed to Build Playground

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                      

                         

CONTACT:    Rebekah Cain, FirstLine Schools, 504-952-1331, rcain@firstlineschools.org

                        Anne Patton, Verint Systems, 770-754-8656, anne.patton@verint.com

                        Mike Vietti, KaBOOM!, 785-320-2137, mvietti@kaboom.org 

                                                                                                                                               

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED TO HELP BUILD PLAYGROUND

WHAT:                   Volunteers are needed to help build a playground in one day for children at Langston Hughes Academy Charter School (3519 Trafalgar St .) in New Orleans. On Monday, Feb. 6, more than 200 volunteers from Verint^® Systems, ACCENT on Arrangements, Inc., FirstLine Schools and Langston Hughes Academy Charter School, organizers from KaBOOM! and residents of the local community will join forces build a new playground at the school. The new playground’s design is based on drawings created by children who participated in a Design Day event in January.   

                            No experience is necessary, and there are jobs for people of all ages and abilities. Volunteers must pre-register by contacting lhakaboom@gmail.com or 504-307-2383.

WHY:                  The new playground will provide nearly 300 children in the community with a safe place to play. Currently, the children who attend Langston Hughes Academy Charter School do not have a playground for students to enjoy.

                            The playground will be the first built by KaBOOM! and Verint and is one of more than 150 playground builds KaBOOM! will lead across the country in 2012 in an effort to fulfill its vision of a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America.

Langston Hughes Academy

The mission of Langston Hughes Academy Charter School is to provide students with the knowledge, skills and character traits necessary to succeed in high school, college and the world beyond. Our goal is to send every student to college by preparing them for the best public and private high schools in the New Orleans area. Learn more at http://www.langstonhughesacademy.org. 

FirstLine Schools

The mission of FirstLine Schools is to create and inspire great public schools in New Orleans. FirstLine currently operates Samuel J. Green Charter School, Arthur Ashe Charter School, John Dibert Community School, Langston Hughes Academy, and Joseph S. Clark Preparatory High School. 

Verint Systems Inc.

Verint^® (NASDAQ: VRNT) is the global leader in Actionable Intelligence^® solutions and value-added services. Its extensive portfolio of Enterprise Intelligence Solutions^™ and Security Intelligence Solutions^™ helps worldwide organizations capture and analyze complex, underused information sources—such as voice, video and unstructured text—to enable more timely, effective decisions. More than 10,000 organizations in 150 countries, including over 85 percent of the Fortune 100, use Verint solutions to improve enterprise performance and make the world a safer place. Headquartered in N.Y. and a member of the Russell 3000 Index, Verint has offices worldwide and an extensive global partner network. Learn more at www.verint.com.

ACCENT on Arrangements, Inc., a DMC Network Company

Founded in 1991 by Diane B. Lyons, ACCENT on Arrangements, Inc. is a privately held corporation with the primary interest of planning, managing and supervising group activities to include spouse/guest programs, team building activities, special events, entertainment and décor, transportation services, speaker programs, hospitality staff and VIP services as well as children’s programs and events. Headquartered in New Orleans, ACCENT has a management team with more than 90 years of combined destination management experience. It is a proud member of the DMC Network, an LLC of the top performing, wholly owned DMCs through North America.

KaBOOM!

KaBOOM! is the national non-profit dedicated to saving play. Children today spend less time playing outdoors than any previous generation, a fact that is having disastrous consequences on their health, achievement levels, and overall well-being. To fight this play deficit, social entrepreneur Darell Hammond founded non-profit KaBOOM! in 1996 in Washington, D.C. with a vision of creating a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. Since then, KaBOOM! has mapped over 89,000 places to play, built more than 2,000 playgrounds, and successfully advocated for play policies in hundreds of cities across the country. KaBOOM! also provides communities with online tools to self-organize and take action to support play on both a local and national level. Hammond chronicles the founding of the organization and the importance of the cause of play in his The New York Times Best Seller KaBOOM!: How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play. The book details how businesses and communities can work together to save play for children across the country. All author proceeds support KaBOOM!. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., KaBOOM! also has offices in Chicago and San Mateo, Calif. For more information, visit www.kaboom.org.

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NEWS RELEASE: Claudia Barker New Executive Director of Edible Schoolyard New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS, LA, Tuesday, January 17, 2012 – Today Claudia Barker starts as the new Executive Director of the Edible Schoolyard New Orleans, a signature program of FirstLine Schools. 

A native New Orleanian, Claudia Barker has enjoyed serving the non-profit community for the past 30 years both as an executive and as an independent consultant From 2004 through 2011 Claudia served as the Executive Director of New Orleans Outreach, an organization dedicated to improving the quality of public education in New Orleans by bringing community resources and volunteers into the schools.  Before this she served as Director of Young Aspirations/Young Artists (YA/YA), Inc., an arts and social service organization that trains urban youth to become professional artists.  While there she authored YA/YA!  Young New Orleans Artists and Their Storytelling Chairs (and How to YA/YA in Your Neighborhood), published by LSU Press in 1996.  Claudia also served as Assistant Director of the Arts Council of New Orleans, Development Director of the Contemporary Arts Center, and as a development associate at WYES.  Claudia completed an M.A. in history at the University of New Orleans in 1981.

FirstLine Schools and Edible Schoolyard New Orleans are pleased to welcome Claudia to the team.

Edible Schoolyard NOLA

Edible Schoolyard NOLA is a comprehensive seed to table food education program that aims to change the way kids eat, learn and live at (5) FirstLine public charter schools.  The program offers hands-on gardening and kitchen classes that are integrated into the curriculum, culture, and cafeteria programs at the schools it serve.  Founded in 2006, ESY NOLA is in its sixth year of operation and serves 2,400 students in grades pre K through 12th across the FirstLine Schools network.

FirstLine Schools

The mission of FirstLine Schools is to create and inspire great public schools in New Orleans.  FirstLine currently operates Samuel J. Green Charter School, Arthur Ashe Charter School, John Dibert Community School, Langston Hughes Academy, and Joseph S. Clark Preparatory High School. 

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Culinary Corps takes ESYNOLA by storm!

On November 10, FirstLine was proud to welcome CulinaryCorps back to New Orleans as they  teamed up with ESY NOLA for a day of food-focused events at Firstline Schools. Culinary Corps is a group of chefs from all over North America that enable culinary students and professionals to volunteer their skills for the benefit of communities in need.  

The winners!

Early in the day, Culinary Corps teamed up with Green Charter’s 7^th grade class for our 6^th annual Iron Chef Competition! The heat was on as chefs and their 7^th graders determined what dishes to make for this breakfast edition competition. The secret ingredient, Creole Cream Cheese, turned out to be an easy-to-incorporate, delicious addition to all dishes. Though all dishes were fantastic, only 1 cuisine could reign supreme and this was ESY NOLA Chef’s Katie Bingham and Lauren Coroy, along with their skilled group of 7^th graders!  The winning dish had a very fitting name – Green Eggs and Ham – and consisted of grits, greens, boiled eggs and bacon, alongside pecan-crusted French toast with a banana Creole cream cheese sauce.

During the afternoon, Culinary Corps traveled to Langston Hughes where they led a knife skills and food beautification workshop for our foodservice staff.  This was a first for FirstLine foodservice, and in partnership with Sodexo, cafeteria chefs from school around the city, including KIPP and Holy Cross, were able to participate in foodservice professional development!  The group tested new recipes and created new presentations of hot line food to make nutritious and appealing dishes for our students.

In the evening, Culinary Corps helped run John Dibert Community School’s first-ever Family Food Night! Dibert students and parents helped find out what exactly happened to the Food Pyramid. As they traveled from station to station, families picked up pieces to the puzzle along with tasty snacks, recipes they could make at home and participated in fun activities along the way! After collecting all of their puzzle pieces, we put it all together to show them the Food Pyramid is now MyPlate. This new food icon is a great way to teach students and their parents about the food groups and how to create a healthy plate.

Though they have finished their work with ESY NOLA and Firstline Schools for this trip, we wish them luck on the second portion of their trip as they travel to Mississippi to participate in an after-school cooking club program for the Boys and Girls Club of the Gulf Coast.

Check out Culinary Corps’ video of their visit to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast here!

Saturday, November 12^th, was also Green Charter’s 2^nd Open Garden Day this year! Volunteers assisted in various tasks, such as seeding, composting, feeding trees, sign making and even a fun recycled paper activity.  

It takes the generosity and kindness of many people and organizations to make all of these events fantastic events happen. In Firstline School's tradition, I would like to give a shout –out to all of the organizations that helped make these events possible: Culinary Corps, Hollygrove Market & Farm, Whole Foods, Langenstein’s, Junior League of New Orleans   and all of our volunteers! We couldn’t do this without all of you!

FirstLine & ESY NOLA in the News

Here are a couple recent articles focused on a new food tasting in the Langston Hughes Cafeteria, and an article on ESY NOLA:

Students give thumbs up for local products in school taste test

NEW ORLEANS, La. – About 40 students gathered in the lunch room at Langston Hughes Academy charter school recently (Nov. 8) to sample and rate potential menu items made from local products.  (Click the link above to read the rest of the article.)

Changing the way kids “eat, learn, and live” at the Edible Schoolyard New Orleans

(InthekNOwla) -- NEW ORLEANS | If you went to school in Orleans parish, then we’re sure you remember lunchtime. The rectangle-shaped sausage pizza, hamburgers and “Cajun” fries, mashed potatoes and perfectly square chicken nuggets, yellow rice and baked chicken, and something that kind of resembles the McRib from McDonald's. Mix in the regulatory fruit cocktail, spinach (if the grass had recently been cut), bread, and white milk (though it was like finding a $20 bill when a rare chocolate milk was spotted).   (Click the link above to read the rest of the article.)

Clark Prep Homecoming!

Because Clark Prep is FirstLine's first high school, this year was FirstLine's first homecoming!  Thanks to all the support we received from the Clark alumni who know how it's done, the week was a success!

Crimson and Gray Ball

Clark Prep Teacher Flash Mob!

The week started with Spirit Week at Clark, with dress up days including Nerd Day and Clark Pride day. On Thursday, the girls' volleyball team faced off against the faculty, and on Friday Coach Hess hosted the Clark Pride Pep Rally, featuring the presentation of the marching band, the football team, and a flash mob of teachers dancing!

Pep Rally

Nerd Day!

Saturday was clear skies and crisp, cool weather, with the Bulldogs facing off against Riverside Academy.  Though the Bulldogs weren't victorious, the day was filled with spirit and cheer as alumni, family and friends cheered the Bulldogs through their game.  In addition, many alumni took the opportunity to donate uniforms to help our scholars meet high expectations for professional dress.

Saturday night was the Clark Prep Crimson and Gray Ball, with the gym transformed into a sparkling dance floor.  The homecoming court was sparkling, and students had a wonderful time!

Thanks to all the FirstLine Staff, Clark Staff, students, friends, family and alumni for making this year's homecoming a smashing success!

Food and Fun Events at Firstline Schools

2010 Iron Chef Winners!

It’s been a while since you’ve heard from us and I bet you’re wondering why! We have been busy preparing for some great events coming up in November!

On Thursday, November 10^th, ESY NOLA and Culinary Corps have a  day-long food and fun extravaganza planned! It will kick off with Green Charter’s 6th Annual Iron Chef Competition! This competition will feature 60 of our 7^th graders along with local New Orleans chefs and chefs from all over the U.S.

Also on November 10^th is our FIRST Family Food Night at John Dibert! The Curious Case of the Missing Food Pyramid  is the theme for the night and will feature interactive cooking stations, recipe samples and games to introduce everyone to the new MyPlate icon.

The week of Nov. 7^th  will be even more exciting because we will have our second set of Tulane University Dietetic Interns. They will be collecting data about our salad bars and also doing some plate waste studies at each of the Firstline School locations.  Also, make sure you stop by for Green Charter’s second Open Garden Day of the year on Saturday, Nov. 12^th!

Coming up is our first Family Food Night for this school year at Green Charter and will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 15^th with a focus on healthy holiday recipes! Check back to see the results of our Iron Chef Competition and all of our other great events!