New Orleans’ Ashley Graham and Rhonda Jackson on Tragedy and Resilience

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Ashley Graham, Development Director at New Orleans’ Preservation Hall Foundation, and Rhonda Jackson, Louisiana Director for the No Kid Hungry Campaign, describe the path from deep social inequities to Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans’ recovery and resurgence.

Graham talks about Share Our Strength’s role in sparking collaborations and initiatives to support the rebuilding efforts, including bringing delegations of supporters into areas of need. “Those delegations were interesting because they are people who might not otherwise be sitting around a table together, but we put them on a bus and tried to show what was working in the recovery and try to find ways to get engaged either financially or through their talents… there were lots of amazing ripple effects from those trips," she says.

Jackson outlines the ongoing challenges of combatting childhood hunger in New Orleans, despite the city's rich culinary culture. “It was even hard to convince schools and principals and administrators that childhood hunger was an issue. Yes, I know we have all of this wonderful food around us, but for every day, kids aren't getting meals.” No Kid Hungry recently helped the state’s summer EBT legislation get passed.

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