Educational compost video by Miracle and Quan

the farm cycle ($ave money,save plants) from ourschoolatblairgrocery on Vimeo.

Nat Turner: Post Katrina Revolutionary

Written by Cameron Larkin, Photos by Chris Adams

“Utopian ends are achieved by Practical means”

      

         In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. The deadly storm was powerful enough to break the levees, which started a flood in the city of New Orleans. The Lower 9^th ward was the hardest impacted by the devastating hurricane. Many people were gone and many houses were full of mold and debris due to the flood. Poverty stricken neighborhoods like the lower 9^th ward were most likely not to return due to money issues and other personal problems.

Turner (right) speaks with an assistant

         Months prior to the storm, a New York history teacher named Nat Turner came to New Orleans with the ambition to help the lower 9^th ward make a recovery. The former history teacher that once taught at Beacon School would soon be in a school bus painted blue with the slogan “NY to NO” stretched boldly across the side of the bus. Turner would also live in the bus and give tutoring lessons for free. The bus was parked along a family-owned grocery store named “Blair Grocery”, which closed almost a decade earlier than the storm. The Blair family allowed Turner to use the building to be turned into a school for growing food and teaching the local kids in the 9^th ward the hands on work it takes to make the food and sell it to restaurants. When he first moved into the run-down building, he only had about $11 in his pocket. The roof would constantly leak and the first and second floor were not even part of the “same building.” It was just one structure set on top of another. Turner also didn’t have indoor pluming. The only way Mr. Turner was able to bathe himself was outside in his boxers with bucket of water that his neighbors gave him. He took a bath with that method for about three months. He only had a bathtub and some dirt to grow his first few plants. He had never grown anything in his entire life.

         Six years after the storm, Mr. Turner, along with the Job 1 program, provides jobs to the kids in the lower 9th ward and across New Orleans during the summer. During the school year he provides an after school employment for students in the lower 9^th ward since schools don’t offer any after school programs and no other businesses are hiring. Mr. Turner feels as though sitting in a classroom is okay but actually doing the hands on work can teach a person better. This experience allows these kids to learn how to make their own rich soil, grow their own food, use social networking to “get the word out” and advertise, negotiate and sell produce to restaurants and locals. The program also offers an alternative to those kids and young adults who have dropped out or have been kicked out of school who would have otherwise have turned to crime.

         Mr. Turner has brought the teenagers of the lower 9^th ward many jobs and many great opportunities to learn about growing food. The kids are getting a hands-on look at what it takes to make the food and sell the food to various buyers and restaurants. Mr. Turner was asked “Would you come back to New Orleans if another Hurricane Katrina hit?”, his answer was “Hell yeah!”

Building Beds and Food Justice Starting at 9AM!