New Orleans Culture is world-renowned, and for many in our region, it’s the reason we stay here in the face of the endless challenges, natural and man-made. Yet the appreciation for its culture does not always extend to the culture-creators. From musicians to Mardi Gras Indians, the fact is that only a small percentage of local culture-bearers actually make a living from their contributions.
Into this void steps a nonprofit group called Feed the Second Line.
“We are a grassroots organization solely dedicated to supporting the culture-bearers of our city and creating opportunities for them,” said Tinice Williams, the nonprofit’s new executive director. “Being a culture-bearer, living it, it’s a great feeling for them to know that there is someone they can go to, someone who has their back.”
Within the local cultural spectrum, the creators are a very diverse group. Feed the Second Line not only recognizes this, but it also utilizes that diversity to design widely encompassing solutions to the divergent problems those creators face. The organization also realizes that the regular 9-to-5 job routine usually doesn’t mesh well with the schedules and lifestyles of musicians, artists, second-liners and other creative types.
Instead, Feed the Second Line focuses on helping younger culture-bearers fit into the gig economy, where working hours are flexible and self-selected, and don’t conflict with rehearsals, performances and the general creative process.
“So far, we have helped create over $500,000 worth of gig-work opportunities for 107 musicians, 18 second-line club members, 19 Baby Dolls, 31 Mardi Gras Indians,” Williams reported, “the folks who make our city’s culture.”
The organization took this one step further when the COVID-19 pandemic set in.
“We needed to keep our elders safe, and going to the grocery store was not safe,” said Williams, who also noted that older members of the cultural community often have health issues, such as high blood pressure or diabetes. They may also have limited mobility and/or access to transit, and many live in so-called “food deserts,” meaning that grocery stores selling healthy foods are not found nearby. The final straw, for both older and younger culture-bearers, was that the pandemic severely curtailed their already-limited income opportunities.
From all this came the Food Love! program.
“We provide $400 worth of groceries for elders among the culture bearers, which they can spend on food, cleaning products, hygiene, whatever they may need,” Williams explained. “Then we pay the younger culture-bearers to get the shopping list, go to the grocery stores, buy the groceries, and deliver them to the elders.”
Not only does this provide food, employment and income, it connects cultural creators across the generations. For the elders — many of whom still have few opportunities to get out and socialize even as the pandemic wanes — it provides welcome human company and interaction. For the younger set, it connects them to the wisdom and experience of those who have gone before them, a truly priceless learning opportunity. Thus far, the program has delivered some $200,000 worth of groceries to nearly 140 culture creators.
This approach of creating multiple connections in service of resolving multiple issues is carried one step further with the organization’s Get Lit Stay Lit program, launched in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida and the extended power outages that followed it.
“Our founder, Devin DeWulf, couldn’t leave for the hurricane because his wife is an ER doctor,” Williams recounted. “After the storm passed, when he went out and checked around his neighborhood, he was the only one with power because he had solar power and storage batteries at his house.”
Most of DeWulf’s neighbors who couldn’t leave, either before or after Ida, were elderly people or those with physical disabilities. DeWulf ran an extension cord over to one neighbor who was on oxygen; created a neighborhood cell phone charging station on his front porch; and distributed ice and cold water. Once the word got out, he even got calls from nearby restaurants wanting to know if they could store food in his freezer before it all spoiled.
This last part was not doable, but it triggered some very innovative thinking.
“We have local restaurants all over the city, even in our higher poverty communities,” Williams pointed out, “so we thought, let’s make them neighborhood hubs. They are losing thousands of dollars’ worth of food every time the power goes out, and they are usually in touch with their neighbors.”
To accomplish this, the Get Lit Stay Lit program is placing solar panels on the roofs of neighborhood restaurants and installing storage batteries inside their buildings.
“The restaurants can be feeding locations, and cooling centers in that August heat,” Williams elaborated. “You can get ice, water, charge your cell phone. They would create safe spaces in our communities, because not everyone can evacuate, and not everyone can afford to have solar power and batteries in their homes.”
The benefits for the participating restaurants are many, starting with the fact that maintaining power preserves their hefty investments in perishable foods. The solar power also helps reduce their utility bills year-round. They are able to resume operations much faster after a disaster, reducing their revenue losses. Employees are happier because they lose less working time and income. Serving as a neighborhood hub may even bring future new customers into the establishments.
Underlying all of this is that neighborhood restaurants, often owned and operated by members of the local community, generally have fewer resources to begin with, and are at the highest risk of failure as a result of a serious disruption. Further, issues with the city’s power grid cause far too many outages even outside of major storm events. Even a shorter outage can cause food to spoil and threaten the health of residents who depend on specialized medical devices or cannot tolerate the loss of heat or air conditioning.
In the emergency situations, Williams pointed out that additional beneficiaries of this concept are the first responders.
“The restaurants themselves become like a first responder, and it helps the actual first responders. They can’t get everywhere, maybe because power lines are down, or the streets are flooded, it keeps them from getting to people. But if they know there’s a hub close by, they can focus on other areas.”
To help with this aspect of this very big picture, as the program expands, Williams envisions creating a grid map that would show first responders where solar-equipped restaurants are located. This has the additional benefit of guiding the responders themselves to a place where they can get a meal, some cold water, a charge for their phones.
Though only a few months into the job with Feed the Second Line, Williams feels a personal stake in the work, having had more than her share of unpleasant hurricane experiences as a child. She remembers her family gathered together in whichever relative’s house was on highest ground, sweating in the heat, eating canned foods and having only a few candles for light.
“These hubs would relieve a lot of trauma for children,” she commented. “I don’t want my kids to go through what I had to go through.”
William brings useful experience solving problems and making connections from her previous work. She spent 11 years at the Langston Hughes Academy, where she worked in the classroom, served as an interventionist, and ultimately became a dean of the lower school. Much of work involved building relationships with the students and their families, a valuable skill in the context of working with young people, elderly people, restaurant owners and a wide variety of partners.
Among those partners, Solar Alternatives is the company leading the process of installing the solar apparatus. Also involved is the Louisiana Green Corps, which provides job training for those same young culture-bearers that Feed the Second Line works so hard to support. The training prepares them to work as solar installers, providing full certification in just three months. Like just about every other industry in the country, the solar industry is in need of workers, and this aspect of the program helps to alleviate that.
“We are connecting all the dots,” said Williams. “Nothing and no one is being left behind.”
Of course, the solar installations are not free. In fact, each one costs between $60,000 and $90,000. Given that Feed the Second Line’s initial goal is to equip 300 local restaurants, a huge amount of funding is required. While at some point city funding for decentralized microgrids may become available, at present nothing is underway.
Williams has some solutions for this problem as well.
“First, there are tax credits than can cut the costs in half,” she explained. “Then, each one of these restaurant owners is saving on their utility bills every month. If we ask them to contribute $200 back each month, with 300 restaurants, that would generate $60,000 per month. The program would be completely self-sustaining, and we can expand it not just here, but to other communities that have dealt with repeated natural disasters.”
Still, it’s a big step from starting up to equipping 300 restaurants. The first three are in place: Queen Trini Lisa in Mid-City, Afrodisiac in Gentilly, and the Mosquito Supper Club Uptown. Funding for two more is in hand, all thanks to new and very important partnership with the Levine Impact Lab, a new initiative of the Honnold Foundation.
According to its website, the Levine Impact Lab “powers equitable impact by investing in grassroots leaders and organizations, building their capacity to accelerate positive change.” Key components of its strategy include organization and leadership development, multi-sector and multi-regional networking, and direct financial support.
Feed the Second Line is one of four organizations nationally chosen to be part of the initial Levine cohort. From Williams’ perspective, “This aligns with us and our mission, and can help our organization grow.”
A first grant from the Honnold Foundation is funding the initial installations, but the partnership with the Levine Lab entails much more than just financial support. Over the course of three years, Williams will receive ongoing executive training and coaching. Beyond the funding, additional resources in terms of expertise, research and connections with other organizations doing similar work, for shared learning and possibly even collaborations, will be included.
Perhaps most useful of all, Levine will provide introductions to other potential funders, especially in the foundation world. “When different things come up that align with us, they will definitely bring them to us,” was how Williams summed it up.
While the purpose of the Get Lit Stay Lit program is to provide neighborhood micro-hubs, Williams sees a much bigger picture.
“Hurricanes and storms are not going anywhere. Mother Nature seems to love to pick on us,” she observed. “If we are able to do this, it will be a great impact on the entire city. If the restaurants are not functioning, people can’t eat, employees can’t work. It puts everybody in a bad spot. It sabotages our tourism industry. Obviously we’re doing it for the culture-bearers, but when it comes down to a natural disaster, we’re all affected by it. So each installation we do makes the city better.”
In that context, she added, “I want to let the world know about our work. They can join us and be part of what we’re doing. They can look us up at feedthesecondline.org and be a part of supporting our culture-bearers.
“You’re not going to find masking Indians and Baby Dolls and Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs anywhere else,” she continued. “New Orleans is a city of love, and we want everyone to join in and become a part of that.”
