Watch: New Orleans Tourism & Cultural Fund press conference

well good morning everyone I am Lisa Alexis I'm the CEO and president of the New Orleans tourism and cultural fund known as nocf I'd like to thank our media that are here always here supporting and sharing our stories and and celebrating the impact that we're making here in the City of New Orleans with our cultural economy I'd also like you to know that if you have a nice Aroma you're smelling right now that is coming from chef Sha's fine dining to go and we're going to have nice Delicacies for you to enjoy as well as Refreshments I would also like to acknowledge our board members our board chairman Lloyd Dennis is here with us today and he will be coming up and sharing information with you we also have board member Big Chief da Edwards that are that is here with us as well and we thank our board because let me let you know our board is a working Bo Lord all hours of the day and night but it keeps us going and it keeps the support lifted So today we're going to get it going the purpose is to apprise you of our cultural economic opportunities there are going to be programs we're going to bring to your attention new Partnerships economic impact and then we'll have an announcement as well at the end so stay with us and without further Ado I'd like to start with the fact that when we think of wisdom we look to this person this person leads us and encourages us to always listen make readjustments then again go back to listening listening to the community listening to the culture and then refining what we do so we're always a work in progress and I'd like to bring forth our board chairman Lloyd Dennis who will now bring to you information regarding [Applause] nlcf before I get go any further uh Lisa mentioned our board I have the pleasure of working with a very hardworking board uh Angie Simon is our vice chair she's I don't think she's with us today Susan Brenan is our Treasurer uh you met D Our Big Chief Dow Edwards Big Chief Dear malanson and council member Leslie Harris and council member Freddy King III and I say this because this is a working board uh very hardworking board I sometimes I feel guilty being chair of a board that people pour themselves into but they're all committed to the same thing and that is making sure that New Orleans stays an authentic cultural destination for the world and so to do that though we have to listen to do that we have to listen and we are still listening we were put in a position of having to build a ship while we sailed it and we pulled some planks out and replaced them so it was created through the process of listening from the very beginning we listened before we did anything got started we we talked to the cultural leaders in the City of New Orleans asked them to work with us give us some time to get it right and they did and for that we're grateful the grants program came out of that came out of the preliminary uh conversations and and investment of time and effort by our board our staff and people from Community who invested themselves with us the nocf honest gal was launched and continues to IR our creative greats as a result of listening and acting to the community culture the the culture Community said we need to be celebrated culture bearers need to be celebrated we listen and we celebrate the cultural working group that's led by board member d Edwards came into existence so that we could listen more and better and harder from a diverse group of people who also invested themselves in making sure that we do the best that we can to serve this city when we serve the culture we serve the city when we serve the culture bearers we serve the city because were it not for the culture of New Orleans we would just be a poort we would just be a port the one other thing I wanted to add is that we listen to the city council councilwoman Helena Romano was concerned had a constituent who was concerned that when we give money to people large grants for in things like Super Bowl things like Essence that we make sure that they are investing in local vendors and local businesses that they don't bring sand to the beach and we got together with the council and we figured out a way to do that and be accountable and hold them accountable and I'm going to say this it's Essence has never used more local businesses than they did this year and the Super Bowl will use more local businesses than they ever had due to the efforts of this staff and before I sit down I want to thank thank everybody in the city everybody in the city I want to thank the mayor the mayor did the fight that got the funding that we use I want to S thank the city council the city council make sure that every year we stay on track and I want to thank the legis legislature for having the wisdom to understand that if we don't invest in the real culture of new or it could disappear so thank all of you for coming I want to thank this amazing staff and it has been my pleasure to serve as board chairman of a board where all the business is done on top the table you don't have to know anybody to get a grant from uh nocf you don't have after that's the way things used to be not anymore go to the website pull out the application it's going to be measured by a metric and if you deserve it and if you have skin in the game skinning the game you've been doing this stuff you've invested in the culture on your own if you have skin in the game and you meet those criteria we want to fund it so I want to thank you again one other thing we did and this is how to listening and and I'm reminded because we have the fried the fried uh Chicken Festival guy in the audience I went to genti fest last year and almost cried when I found out that they didn't get funded because they missed our met you know the number the cut off number well we don't have a cut off number anymore excuse me we have a cut off time so if you get your Grant in on time it's going to be considered and if you are a festival an annual event it's a two-year roll in agreement now because people have to be able to do business they have to be able to make plans they have to be able to make make commitments and so the conversation that came out of that going to the festival and listening change the way that we do business in a way that's going to help the festivals continue to prosper because the festivals pay a lot of people a lot of money in New Orleans pay a lot of musicians a lot of food vendors do well so we just want to say thank you to everybody for having faith and and and staying with us and continuing to support what we do across the board thank you very much and uh I don't I'm supposed to bring somebody up you thank you Mr Dennis and we are moving right along I'm told to check a message real quick but I would like to say to keep everything smoothly flowing to address economics we turn to our finance team so introducing our CFO and deputy director Tiffany Jackson who will then be followed by our grants manager rosn Sanders thank you thank you Lisa at nlcf we focus on five core values daily one of those core values is impact we seek to impact our team and community Through Partnerships grants and programs to drive tourism and sustain our unique culture today I'd like to share how our small But Mighty team and board have impacted our community in just over three years we have set a new standard by awarding an unprecedented number of Grants to the New Orleans cultural artists these Awards and sponsorships have been a Cornerstone of our support for local festivals since 2021 we have awarded over 3.6 million doll to local [Applause] festivals these sponsorships have empowered Festival organizers to enhance their marketing strategies attracting visitors to our city and filling more hotel rooms major festivals such as French Quarter Fest jazz Fest Satchmo Fest Fried Chicken Festival Bayou Classic and the Essence Festival of culture have resulted in over $1.2 billion dollar in economic impact for our city and state it has been the goal of nocf to be a catalyst for the elevation and prosperity of our cultural artists and future generations to make this dream a reality we have teamed up with the F with the producers of the Fried Chicken Festival to create the nlcf merchant Marketplace a space within the festival's footprint our sponsorship covers the festival vendor registration fees tents and access to electricity to collect credit card payments for 20 vendors selling non food cultural products last year vendors reported a combined total of revenues of over $40,000 for the two-day event in conclusion the nocf awards have been far-reaching and multifaceted they have driven economic growth fostered Community Development spurred Innovation supported individual aspirations and created opportunities to sustain our culture as we move forward it is Cru crucial to recognize and celebrate the transformative power of the New Orleans tourism and cultural Fund in shaping a better future for all of us one last thing I want to take a minute to recognize two team members that you will not see on the stage today but they have worked hard to ensure this event is successful and that is our office manager kissy Matthews and our senior accountant Maurice Norwood thank you and next up we have Roslin Sanders our grants manager thank you Tiffany uh good morning I am Roslin Sanders I am the grants manager within otcf I will provide Grant updates um when we talk about enhancing and sustaining our City's cultural infrastructure we know funding is necessary to achieve this goal so in so far in 2024 we have awarded 260 grants totaling $3.2 million this is a win for the City of New Orleans as it allows us to invest in the culture that drives our local economy so now through October we are processing over 450 Grant applic ations that were submitted in this final cycle in November we will begin decision letters and award letters for level one and level two applications and we will close out the grant cycle in December with a board meeting final decision letters and awards for level three applications this information can be find on the grants page of our website it's www.tcf.com and lastly we will add the 202 25 grant cycle at the end of this year so thank you and remember culture is our open door thank you Roslyn and I would just like to add as we're speaking to economic impact I would like to note that since Inception in 2021 it was May of 2021 ncf has given over ,00 grants and those grants year-to dat total $13.7 million to the

culture we are very excited with that and we'd also like to as I introduce our next speaker note that we have awarded $ 1.9 million specifically to youth programming and that youth programming includes benefactors of stem Nola make music Nola coats for kids be loud Eternal seeds and many more so now moving to the songwriter the songwriter wrote I believe the children are our future teach them well and let them lead the way all right that's enough that's enough a little culture in me however I will say our next speaker does just that she teaches our for youth she is a professor at Xavier University and I'm sure she has a higher level than that and she's also the executive director of coats for kids and make music Nola to speak to our youth investment and its impact I present Dr gang Co thank you very much uh I live in Gent so I'm going to share with my neighbors about the grant for the festival I'm supposed to be actually in the class right now teaching music appreciation and yeah as Xavier and I told my student this is so important so I have to go and kids were happy actually you know and I have to tell you I never missed not even been late to class uh when I was uh quitting my job at NOA I had more than 106 days after working for 11 years so you know this is so important to me uh yeah I'm Dr Jano and I would love to talk about what I do briefly as um Miss Alexis mentioned I'm Professor Xavier University but also I have two other um jobs that I'm representing I wear quite a few hats and it's actually possible because of all of you uh as an executive director of quots for kids we have have been collecting codes for underserved children and now we serve system impacted youth through songwriting Workshop so we go to the Covenant House son of Saint and then we teach them how to make Lula by Reb or just knock right uh and I also serve as the executive director of make music Nola a fre string instrumental music program for free and reduced launch program students s uh supported by carall as well and lastly I'm the symphonic director Symphony banded director Xavier University and I teach other classes as well I truly love everything I do because it's all part of my dream to ensure that every child and youth in New Orleans gets to experience the joy and power of music this includes children whose family cannot afford VI or violent lessons or the youth who need a little bit of a hope to reintegrate to the society after making some mistakes and of course my dear HBU students at Xavier NC has been instrumented in many of these successes number one with ncf support codes for kids has evolved into a nonprofit after serving our community for 14 years long collecting 3600 coat through our annual concert our co-host the late Mr Alice misales used to say this is not really about only about collecting codes but this is about bringing the community together honoring his vision we now serve youth with pre-incarceration records human trafficking victims and those dealing with substance use and homelessness by offering songwriting sessions that boost their self-esteem and provide a positive outlet and make at make M Nola we have served hundreds of students by providing teachers to the schools that lack a quality music program often due to cost of instrument and instruction and thanks to this success in the two programs I was able to hire Xavier University students using your fund as teachers and mentors for both programs this opportunity allows my students to gain relevant experience rather than working minimum wage jobs unrelated to their degrees and lastly we were able to hire numerous New Orleans musicians cultural bearers as instructors and performers enriching our program and supporting the local community your support has been really instrumental to all of us not but not only the youth but old adults involved involved who want be kind of grownup that take actions to support and guide our youth rather than just waking up and watching the news about juvenile crime and only complain or criticizing and I want to share just brief story about last week when we served as son of Saint I asked my musician okay can you send me your updated mailing address and he said no charge for this one I received more than the boy I serve today thank you ancf for helping us become a support system for our youth who are hungry for for guidance creativity and sense of a belonging on behalf of all the you young people we serve and our supporters in our community I want to express our deepest gratitude for your ongoing support I'm in here to support not only Grant but Alexis really comes to our concert and she talks Our Youth and performers and she also dances to the music so so I'm G to promise I'm going to buy nice dress and join your Gala too and dance there too but in return I want to invite all of you that we are going to whereare we are going to uh host all the musicians who worked for us plus those system impacted used the song compositions and thanks to Brian I saw you briefly in the giao I couldn't have done this without you it's going to be November 21st in the Galia homeall and once again thank you so much for all your support and we are very grateful thank you thank you so much Dr Co I would like to announce that unfortunately duty calls duty calls for mayor canell all throughout the day and night and unfortunately she will not be able to attend today's press conference however I want to emphasize the fact that mayor Toya Krell is the Visionary who created the idea to establish incf and fought through all of the processes and steps to bring us to the reality of an actual nonprofit Economic Development Corporation so if we can just give her a round of applause for what she created that is going strong today and now sharing new programs and the power of partnership I present to you and introduce our program director clery Stenson all right thank you Lisa and good afternoon everyone and thank you for taking time to be with us here today I'm cler Stenson in tcf's program director ncfs programming includes the grants program the elevation series Workshop the cultural working group and the nocf honors Gayla this afternoon I will provide you with updates and announcements for the grants program and our elevation series Workshop ncfs board member big Da Big Chief Dow Edwards will speak to the culture working group and event producer Wilson AB will speak to our 2025 nocf honors Gayla the grant program is significant to the arts and culture community in helping artists and Arts entities sustain their work and programming throughout the year we at ncf are listening to the artistic community's needs we launched a pilot program named the Golden Age culture program this program is designed to help cultural artists and culture bearers ages 60 plus learn how to complete a Grant application with ncf and also understand and navigate the submittable platform which we use for all of our our grant applications we started with a small group of our golden age artists and we look forward to the expansion of this program in 2025 with the upcoming elevation series Workshop nocf is in partnership with the mayor's office of culture economy and we will host a workshop during the mayor's neighborhood engagement 2024 neighborhood Summit this collaboration will assist the cultural community in preparing for Grant Cycles at their business information to the City of New Orleans brass system and understanding what is needed for them to not only be artists in the city but business ready professionals when hired by the City of New Orleans or seeking potential funding from nocf this event will occur on November 16th 2024 from 9:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the convention center neighborhood engagement will begin registration this weekend so please visit www . nola.gov for more information and now to speak on the impact that ncfs Partnerships have had on events programming and activities in the cultural Community we have three Partners here today to give testimony and reflection on how important ncfs programming is for their organizations first we will have sherw Collins executive director and producer of the yummy viget festival and then we'll have Cleveland Spears the president and CEO of festivals for goods the also yummy fried Chicken Festival and then finally we will have Alice Glenn the Executive Vice President of New Orleans and Company who is a collaborating partner with us for the Nola by Nola Music Festival please come in that order and thank you thank you so much cler and we'd like to make a quick announcement anyone who's parked in the fire lane right by this building we're asking you to please move your vehicle we cannot have a fire lane block just want to make that clear and if we will do one adjustment with our partners who are very important to us we have a schedule that we need to adjust so if you would be so kind we would now like to bring up Ariel Wilson who is going to speak to our Gayla but also most importantly speak to the fact that we're having this Gayla and that we are utilizing this space today we would like to make an announcement and an acknowledgement at this time thank you so much for your patience Ariel Wilson Wilson a proprietor Thank you Lisa um I am humbled to be in this room today with all of these cultural artists we need to give you all a round of applause those numbers are unprecedented and we really need to bring it back to the community and share how good this work is doing in the community so with that um wilsonb is in its third year to be producing the 2025 ncf honors Gala we're really excited about it um when I first joined nocf team I was so excited to hear that they wanted to honor cultural artists around the city and they do look forward to it every year because we're sold out every year so with that being said um Marty grow world at the river district is our presenting sponsor thank you Barry Kar um we are really excited to have WWL channel 4 as our media sponsor thank you Todd Smith and team now this process is very open it is not judged by a panel it is not picked by certain people it is the community that nominates folks for these Awards the nominations were collected in a two-e period from a public call of nominations and it excluded the nocf staff and board I think that's important to um recognize that um and then a selection committee um was consisted of cultural industry leaders and artists as well as Civic leaders to vote and select the honores anonymously and now it is my pleasure to announce the 2025 Anor re the 2025 culinary arts award will go to Vance vron the design award Queen Taj entertainment Arya Mason literary arts and Humanity Sunny Patterson preservation Daryl reev visual arts and crafts Big Chief Victor Harris and our 2025 emerging artist is Troy Sawyer and last but not least our lifetime achievement this year will go to Big Chief monk brro please give it up for these amazing artists so tickets and sponsorships are available nf.com I repeat nf.com everyone sitting in this room has a network right all of the funds that are raised for this event goes directly back into the culture thank you and have a great day oh and Mr Barry Kar please give it up for Barry Kar good afternoon um listen this is I my hat off to the mayor when she put together the tourism and cultural fund you know by highlighting and supporting the culture bears in the City of New Orleans we're really just investing in ourselves we're investing in the city um you know I look over and we we we were talking about the Super Bowl that we're hosting you know the Super Bowl has been in New Orleans will tie this year for 11 times it's been in New Orleans well the reason why it's been to New Orleans 11 times is because of our culture and who we are and what we do and obviously you know Marty is just one part of what we are it's our music it's our food um it's it's it's the Indians it's the artists it's it's everything that we do and we are really an incredibly unique place you know um I get the opportunity to travel all over the world and believe me everybody wants to copy what we do here in this city of New Orleans they want to be New Orleans um and they try hard and frankly um and I make a good business out of of trying to bring it to them and and hopefully we will promote New Orleans you know Universal Studios does they turn their whole theme park in Orlando into New Orleans for a couple of months two to three months every year purple green and gold they have New Orleans bands come in they've serving New Orleans Food and I think that that makes people want to come here and see the real thing um but it is these culture bearers and our artists that create this gumbo of what we are and that's the reason why we have the success that we have and that's the reason why we have these events and people want to come to New Orleans because we are a real place with real people and a real culture that really fascinates the rest of the world and um you know marar world and and what we do here is one part of it and I just want to thank all of the culture bearers and all the people and all of you people here that are part and support this because this is the most important thing that we can do for our city we're just all we're doing is highlighting and helping ourselves and promoting the people that make New Orleans the greatest place in the world thank you all very much thank you so much Barry and Barry and I serve as co-chairs on the host Committee of special events and hospitality and it's a great pleasure learning from him as well we will now move to our partners and speaking of Partnerships we also partner with the University of New Orleans and in doing so I would also like to acknowledge Abby Caruso who's an intern with our office she's great she's in her graduate program and and growing and she adds impact and advisement to our staff each day so we're very uh happy to have that partnership with youo and very happy to have Abby as a part of our team so moving right into the beignet Festival that's coming up bringing up Sherwood Collins thank you so much Lisa and thank you all for having me here today um Sherwood Collins and I founded beign Fest in 2016 to advance a cause that's near and dear to my family raising awareness and funds for a local autism Community I also found a beignet Fest for my love of New Orleans for me the best job is running a festival that showcases the great City and our amazing culture here our music food art and Community are really what it's all about so the New Orleans tourism and culture fund has supported my vision with the grant since Inception helping to underwrite the cause of hiring local musicians to perform at our Festival so this year we were awarded a multi-year grant as Mr Dennis alluded to something that has allowed us to achieve multi-year planning and look how we can scale the event beyond our current success uh the guaranteed funding helps ensure that b FZ can also showcase the best of New Orleans culture I can't tell you how much an agency like ncf means to event producers like me helping to advance what we're working so hard to do with local vendors and musicians so at beignet Fest this year uh we'll welcome locals and visitors alike to enjoy beignet all different ways all on one day with live local music on artist Market food vendors that reflect the rich in diverse flavor of New Orleans we've got Seafood stuff beignet traditional beignet hot honey chicken beignet fancy beignet like bananas fucer plus this year we've even rolling out some Asian inspired cuisine as well as some Latin American inspired cuisine as well um and if you're gluten-free or vegan we have beignet for yall as well uh so we inviting everybody to come down September 16th uh to City Park and we're hoping it's going to be a nice cool day aside from the brutally hot days that we've had when we were in September the past couple years so we are moving from the beginning of the festival calendar to the end but yall will still hopefully be able to come out and enjoy this great musical lineup that we have for yall thanks nctf nocf with um performers like Amanda Shaw Big Sam's Funky Nation John Claren the absolute monster gentleman and a great upand cominging talent and Sierra green the Giants who's lining up Frenchman Street um so thank you again to ncf for all that you've done and accomplished and to Lisa and her staff and the board for helping support us um to best showcase New Orleans and its culture um and for doing a phenomenal job communicating about Partnerships grants and the programs available so it really is making a difference and helps us to fulfill our mission and provide grants and opportunities for people around this city so again thank you thank you so much surewood and just to emphasize on housekeeping if your vehicle is parked along the river that is also considered the fire lane and we need to have that clear at all times for emergency sake so if you are parked please move we do not want uh any inconvenience of your vehicle being told but we must always keep our emergency lanes clear so thank you again and bringing right up Cleveland Spears Fried Chicken Festival and Hope you all enjoyed what was it the bubbles and boil Festival you can speak to that I win and it was great thank you Lisa and thank you uh ncf board and and thank you all for having me here today uh and yes thanks to the support of ncf we were able to launch a new Festival this year honoring our Seafood culture called bruise balls and Bubbles uh and so we'll be bringing that back again next year as well but today I'm here to talk about uh the national Fried Chicken Festival uh and we are very grateful for the partnership we've had over the last several years with the New Orleans tourism and culture fund when we shared this Vision we had of creating a food center Festival uh to First celebrate New orleans's Rich culinary culture uh and and Southern Heritage uh we shared that Vision with New Orleans tourism and culture fund uh and it immediately uh brought into our vision uh it was also aligned with their mission because not only are we celebrating the food culture of New Orleans we're very intentional about supporting small independently owned restaurants uh for anyone who's ever been to the National Fried Chicken Festival you won't see any of those big chains out there uh last year we hosted over 50 restaurants at the festival all independently on small local restaurants uh last year our restaurants over the two days generated over a million dollars in sales uh across all 50 restaurants uh and the team at Lisa and a team at nocf had a vision not only did they want us to use our Festival to SP restaurants but other small businesses as well and that team came up with the idea of creating the nocf merchant Marketplace uh this year will be the third year we'll be hosting the merchant Marketplace comprised of 20 small businesses selling Arts crabs wearable merchandise candles and and everything you can think of uh we've heard Amazing Stories from those 20 plus uh vendors about selling out of their merchandise over the course of the weekend uh meeting uh brick and morar store brick and morar store owners that they've developed Partnerships with that they're providing merchandise to on an ongoing basis and they've talked repeatedly about the measurable impact uh that this partnership with nocf and a fried CH Fest has had in helping them grow and scale their business uh so we continue to be grateful for uh the growth that nocf has has helped us to realize uh we've been able to grow so much that earlier this year uh USA Today rated the national Fried Chicken Festival one of the top 10 food festivals in the US uh coming in at number six on their list uh and we wouldn't be able to do that without great support ncf I see uh Alice with a New Orleans and Company here and a number of our partners are also in the audience wwltv also one of our Media Partners as well and so as I stand here today we are a few short weeks away from the Fried Chicken Festival uh it'll be October 5th and 6th on the New Orleans Lakefront uh two full day of food music and New Orleans culture on the the beautiful lakefront and so everyone seeing this today I certainly invite you to join us at the festival and you can find out more information at friedchicken festival.com thank you all so much for having me thank you Cleveland and we always save those strong females for uh for Less coming up is Alice Glenn and she's with New Orleans and Company and she we have several several Partnerships but we have a big one coming up which is the Nola by Nola Festival so Alice Thank you Lisa um nocf is such a great partner to New Orleans and Company and to the city we appreciate you and your teams your board so much and we know you're listening our organizations share many common goals and I love the nocf tagline that was mentioned culture is an Open Door which is so true um that culture is what drives our economy and brings a strong quality of life to all of us who live and work here the New Orleans and Company mission is to inspire promote and encourage travel to our city for the economic social and Community benefit of New Orleans and its people uh for the business community and for our musicians chefs artists tourism means business guests careers and preserving our culture for future Generations uh for our residents tourism means stronger imp infrastructure Economic Development uh tax savings for every family in Louisiana civic pride Rich cultural offerings Superior to much larger cities if you think about it New Orleans is a relatively small city with a population of only 400,000 people but we regularly punch above our weight we like to say um we have the assets of a much larger City with worldclass restaurants attractions and that's because of our culture and the millions of visitors who come here to experience and help sustain that culture every year the work of ncf is so important to that end the competition today is so Fierce visitors have many more choices of where to spend their time and their hard-earned income special event organizers have many many more options um As Cities all over the country are making significant investments in new Arenas stadiums convention centers and other attractions the race to create and then recreate the visitor experience has never been more intense we have to get it right and we have to do it right and nocf is a key partner in making sure that that happens as we move into the fall months we celebrate our music and our world class musicians with Nola by Nola starts September 26th lasts 10 days uh more than 50 venues are currently signed up and there are more than 300 shows currently scheduled New Orleans company is working hard to fill them all that's we lead into music month for the month of October where we know that we celebrate our musicians year round but being able to highlight that work um on a national and international scale um is important for us to do and so the month of October is again music month um and we are also proud to highlight our musicians database in partnership with wwz that can be found on new orleans.com

along along with more information on Nola by Nola music month and all of the other activities that are going on in closing New Orleans is probably the only city that can say that we will hold three iconic Global events in a matter of less than six months three nights of Taylor Swift uh leading straight into the Super Bowl and then marra all in really more than like five months throw in beignet Fest and the national Fried Chicken Fest which would be Marquee events in any other city um it's it's an incredible time to be here in New Orleans as it is all the time um all of those draw huge dollars to our economy benefit our community reinforce why New Orleans is built to host together let's keep making New Orleans the most remarkable unique and welcoming city in the world not only for visitors but for all of us thank you thank you thank you so much Alice and now we are going to close with our bookends we begin with our board and we close with our board and to speak to the advancement of sustainable tourism and to make an announcement that we are bringing forward to you I would like to introduce to you our board member Big Chief and chairman of the cultural working group for nocf Big Chief Dow Edwards good morning thank you Lisa uh I just want to say thank you all for everybody that came out um for far too long in the City of New Orleans it's been said that the culture bubbles up from the street without much help and support from the city those days are long dead and gone we are listening the mayor listened years ago when she first won office she had a transition team and the transition team came out and said that we need to do a much better job of supporting the culture there's too many other cities that have less culture that supports it better and the mayor decided that she want found this way with the New Orleans culture as a tourism Fund in order to support that and start supporting the culture in a way that is significant and can really make a change well like Mr Dennis said we listen we continue to listen and the people we need to listen to is the people we decide to listen to when we form the cultural working group and it is a working group it's a working group of culture bearers from all genres of culture in New Orleans from all economic aspects of culture in New Orleans and these people got together and we worked real hard with the help of trip wise in order to kind of help us stay on task and and and and streamline what we are doing but what we heard was that we don't find a have a central mechanism of supporting a cultural ecosystem that can help all the diverse genres of cultures function together so what we said we were going to come up with was after long consideration of all types of options and we felt that the best way to step forward was come up with a cultural information system that provides knowledge to the culture bearers of they can promote themselves on the on the on the uh cultural information system they can find resources to help better Empower them to monetize their cultural activities and can also find go on there and find we're going to help them with understanding how for those of us in the elderly age like myself that don't really understand computers like you young folks or the folks that are in the computer age we're going to empower them to be able to interact on on the systems that we put in place so that's the benefit for the culture bearers but also is going to benefit the culture promoters they're going to be able to go on there find out where the culture bears are where our local talent resides what they can do what they can provide for the events that they we're hosting here in the city and then have an engagement between the the both the community members and the business members so that we can empower the culture bearers to be able able to make a earn a living wage here in this city and go be able to go forward that's the main thing that we want to do is be able to empower they say knowledge is power and this cultural information system is going to provide everybody with the knowledge of what activities are available where they're going to be located at and how to engage with each other and so one one last thing I just want to say is that we're listening thank [Applause] y'all thank you all for listening we know we had an aggressive schedule we see so many of our partners here thank you for your time I know it's valuable thank you to J Cicero Sports Foundation he's hosting a delegation of people here Mike SAA Convention Center conventions going on the mayor's office cultural economy I see so many I believe I saw Jade Russell essence so who I haven't mentioned know that you are in our hearts uh we see you Le bur we see and we're listening to all of you so keep us informed and just to remind you you know how we do things here in New Orleans we have barbecued shrimp butini we have all sorts of the uh uh Delicacies there so we're going to provide you with lunch so you can run back and join your regular scheduled day thank you all so much we're listening

2024-09-22 03:36

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