News Blog

One of our 2018 Community Micro Grant recipients is Tremė Community Dispatch, a project by Kaya Nicole and New Orleans Burners Without Borders.

Project lead Kaya describes the project:

Initially, we prepared 50 emergency hurricane kits to distribute throughout the Tremė community. Our primary goal was to inspire civic engagement by preparing the community for crisis.  The project also falls under the category of ‘gifting,’ as the emergency kits, priced between 8-10$ each, will be freely distributed to communities in need.

The Tremė community has historically faced record levels of rainfall and the most devastating effects of flooding even after Katrina.   Our efforts involve the dissemination of kits and life saving information about evacuation to one of the communities most in need. As a result of our project, we have been able to expand the network of volunteers and community leaders who will assist during an evacuation.  These volunteers will facilitate evacuation by bus five days before expected rainfall. The original 50 kits has expanded to a pledge to One Thousand by the start of the next hurricane season.  

In the first stage of this project, we employed less than 20 volunteers in the purchase, preparation and storage of the kits. Between donors, volunteers and community members, at least 75 people experienced our project so far. In Phase Two, the project is expanding as Nola Burners without Borders and partner organization Evacuteer join forces to spread information about crisis preparation and evacuation to the community.

To learn more about New Orleans Burners Without Borders find them here. To learn about the expansion of this project in collaboration with Evacuteer, click here.

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