The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service is an annual, skills-based and hands on service program to support nonprofit community organizations in the New Orleans and Washington, DC areas intended to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. The program was started by EskewDumezRipple ten years ago to offer selected nonprofit organizations the opportunity to collaborate with a design team in a tailored process aligned with their mission.
For this year’s tenth anniversary, EskewDumezRipple expanded the program to include nine additional architecture and design firms including Rome Office, CICADA, Bell-Butler, Albert Architecture, GOAT, Atelier Design, Mathes Brierre Architects, and Chase Marshall. As champions of civic responsibility and sustainable design, these firms contributed their time and expertise to initiatives promoting equity in the design of the built environment.
Nonprofit partners, who were selected from an open RFQ process, include KIDsmART, People’s Housing+, Hollygrove Dixon Neighborhood Association, New Orleans Society of Dance Baby Doll Ladies, High Voltage Youth Camp, Eternal Seeds, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, VEGGI Farmers Cooperative, Second Harvest Food Bank, and Gethsemane United Methodist Church (based near Washington, DC).
Our team included people from our firm led by team captain Lindsey Bean, as well as team members and co-captain Sam Lindley from EskewDumezRipple and was joined part time by a few members from Batture LLC. Our client was VEGGI Farmers Cooperative, a grower-owned cooperative currently made up of 6 farmers growing on 1.5 acres in New Orleans East. VEGGI prioritizes heirloom produce both native to New Orleans and those historic to the Vietnamese community.
The team spent Friday January 12 in a design charrette planning the use and design for a pair of shipping containers donated to the organization. VEGGI is in need of an organized washing and packaging room, cold storage for produce and an area for classes and workshops. The team also created an overall master plan to help with future planning for the entire farm site. It is the goal to have these efforts aid VEGGI in fundraising efforts to make these improvements a reality.
Learn more about VEGGI here www.veggifarmcoop.com or you can also find them at local farmers markets.
