Center for Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal

A Community Voice (ACV) is a community-based organization that helps its constituency - comprised of working, elderly, women, children and families - organize and voice their concerns to improve the quality of life for both individuals communities in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and St. Charles. A Community Voice addresses issues of affordable housing, financial literacy and financial justice, in particular.

Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO) was established immediately after Katrina to care for the thousands of abandoned animals that were left in New Orleans.  Currently ARNO runs a shelter and provides medical care for over a hundred animals, while trying to place them in homes across the country.  Volunteers help to care for the animals and make the shelter a more comfortable place.

Founded in 2007, Bayou Rebirth is a 501(c)3 non-profit that preserves and restores communities in South Louisiana through hands-on wetlands restoration and stewardship  projects. Bayou Rebirth takes local and visiting volunteers into the wetlands to learn how to plant grasses, plants, and trees. They also teach local students how to build and  maintain  nurseries of plants which the students ultimately plant themselves in local wetlands.
Their website, www.bayourebirth.com, is currently under construction, but the plantings and education programs are going strong.

Beacon of Hope facilitates resident-driven recovery in 16 neighborhoods across New Orleans. Beacon of Hope provides reliable resources on rebuilding for residents, as well as civic engagement opportunities. Programs include community gardens, modern "barn raisings," senior citizen luncheons and neighborhood markets that encourage neighbors to sustain a sense of neighborhood vitality as they help one another rebuild their homes.

Center for Ethical Living volunteers have been placed in a number of New Orleans’ public schools, working both with students in classrooms and on facilities improvements. 

Our volunteers have also worked with the New Orleans Recreation Departments to build playgrounds and beautify public parks.

Common Ground provides short term relief for victims of hurricane disasters in the Gulf Coast region, and long term support in rebuilding the communities affected in the New Orleans area. Common Ground is a community-initiated volunteer organization offering assistance, mutual aid and support. They operate a Lower 9^th Ward distribution center, and organize rebuilding projects on the streets closest to the major levee breach.

Craige Cultural Center was founded in Dr. Thomas Craige's name to create a sense of awareness and to continue to implement structural goals for success. The Craige Cultural Center hopes to bring back a strong desire for a proper education, cultural awareness, love, access, job opportunities and self-sustainability for all.

Edible Schoolyard New Orleans (ESY NOLA) integrates organic gardening and seasonal cooking into the curricula, culture and food programs at Firstline Charter Schools - a network of six public charter schools in New Orleans with large percentages of students eligible for free and reduced lunch. ESY NOLA is based on the original Edible Schoolyard founded in Berkeley, California by chef and food education activist Alice Waters. ESY NOLA provides students with engaging hands-on learning experiences through weekly gardening and cooking classes, and school-based seasonal events that promote the food traditions of New Orleans.

GNOUU is the Greater New Orleans Unitarian Universalists, a cluster group of the three UU churches (First Church of New Orleans, Community Church UU, and North Shore UU Society) located in an area deeply affected by Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the federal levees. These churches have banded together to rebuild and revitalize their congregations and to meet the needs of the slowly recovering community that surrounds them.

Green Light New Orleans enables low and fixed income households to switch from incandescent light bulbs to energy efficient compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) which reduce carbon emissions and utility costs. Their strategy is to actually go to the homes of New Orleans residents and install the CFLs with their help. The mission of the program is to have a positive environmental impact by increasing the use of CFLs, helping low income residents reduce their utility bills and creating a connection between the volunteers and recipients of the service.

Growing Home works in conjunction with Louisiana Land Trust (LLT) and the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority's (NORA) Lot Next Door program to provide homeowners a grant for landscaping improvements like tree plantings and vegetable gardens. Growing home assists people with and without a green thumb to beautify their homes.

Habitat for Humanity is known for the construction work that it organizes for low income families across the world. In addition to the work on individual families’ homes here in New Orleans, volunteers placed with Habitat have worked on the Musician’s Village, a project designed to allow New Orleans musicians to return home.

Hollygrove Market and Farm is an urban farm, market and community garden system in the New Orleans Hollygrove neighborhood. Their mission is to increase access to fresh produce for the Hollygrove neighborhood as well as throughout New Orleans, while promoting sustainable farming techniques and supporting the local economy.

lowernine.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization teaching home rebuilding to volunteers and community residents; facilitating access to social services; working with youth; and experimenting with models of sustainable economic development in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, LA.

Please take some time to explore our website and see how we are helping to rebuild New Orleans, and importantly, see how you can help. We have a chance, now, to build a solid foundation upon which the residents of the Lower Nine, and every other affected neighborhood, can stand, as they recover from the storm and remake their communities stronger than before.

Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans (NHS) was founded to help move low and moderate income residents from rentals to homeownership. Post-Katrina NHS's focus has expanded to include development of a network of interconnected community centers offering a variety of social services including housing and homeownership counseling.  Volunteers placed with NHS have worked on these volunteer centers and on resident’s homes.

The Lower 9th Ward Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association (NENA) was founded to empower residents to take control of the redevelopment of their neighborhood post-Katrina. Their recovery center provides residents with a central location to access information about recovery options and issues, as well as community activities that would not otherwise be available. It currently serves over 1000 individuals who have returned to the neighborhood, 98% of whom are low-income, African Americans. Groups that have volunteered through NENA have rebuilt resident’s homes and done important yard work that prevents displaced people from being fined for having overgrown properties.

The New Orleans Food and Farm Network works to expand the accessibility of healthy and nutritious food throughout the city. Volunteers have worked with the Food and Farm Network on garden builds throughout the city.

Volunteers have been placed with Our School at Blair Grocery, a school dedicated to the growth and development of young minds and creating a resource rich space for sustainable community development in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans.  

Rebuilding Together New Orleans is a local affiliate of a national nonprofit organization – Rebuilding Together – which repairs and restores homes of those in need. With all work done at no cost to the homeowner, primarily using volunteer labor and relying on donated goods, Rebuilding Together allows low-income families to return home.  Volunteering with Rebuilding Together costs an additional $20 per person per day.

Second Harvest Food Bank is an anti-hunger organization serving southern Louisiana through food distribution, education, advocacy and disaster relief.