VISION
Our vision is to foster the ongoing revitalization of New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward as a resilient community through affordable energy, housing, transportation, commerce and fresh, healthy food.
mission
As advocates for a recovering community post-Hurricane Katrina, Lower 9 Resilient works to rebuild our community in a more resilient manner through engagement with residents, businesses, volunteers, local non-profit organizations, and government.
A lifelong resident of the Lower 9th Ward, Warrenetta Cheneau-Banks has spent the last decade helping to rebuild her beloved community following Hurricane Katrina. Shortly after Katrina, Warrenetta launched and ran the volunteer rebuilding program at the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development. Over the course of nearly ten years, Warrenetta coordinated 500-plus homeowner rebuilding projects for more than 10,000 volunteers from across the country and the world. In 2016, Warrenetta started her own non-profit - Lower 9 Resilient - to better serve residents who have fallen through the cracks and are still struggling to complete their repairs and return home. As a Lower 9th Ward ambassador, Warrenetta travels across the U.S. to speak to groups about the resilient residents and how we continue to rebuild our homes, lives and beloved community - 12 years after Hurricane Katrina.
Learn more about Warrenetta's long commitment to and work in her community by watching this video.
board of directors
President
Austin Allen, Ph.D., ASLA, Associate Professor, RR School of Landscape Architecture, LSU has participated in almost eleven-years of recovery efforts in New Orleans and work in Haiti, rebuilding community and engaging students in service learning and design projects.
Allen has taught Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University, since 2010, where he also served as the inaugural Bickham Chair 2008/2009, as well as Graduate Program Coordinator 2012/2015. He is a principal of Design Jones LLC. He has served as the Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Colorado Denver and an Associate Professor of Communication at Cleveland State University. His major interests are in Recovery and Regeneration of Landscapes and Place; Urbanism; Design of Public Space and Public Media; Film Studies with an emphasis on Cultural Landscapes. Allen has worked as both principle and professor on recovery projects in Jacmel, Haiti and in New Orleans, particularly in the Lower Ninth Ward. He is also a documentary filmmaker, Claiming Open Spaces.
vice President
Reverend Gilbert Scie has been the current Pastor of the Greater Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church for the past 22 years. As the pastor, his responsibilities include supervising and controlling all areas of the of the church through teaching, preaching instructions and guidance of members to perform their specific duties and to help develop their spiritual growth in the Lord. He was the Chief Executive Officer of Teagra’s Helping Hands. In this position, his duties included supervising and controlling the transactions of the organization acquiring land acquisitions, documentation of said properties, acquiring lines of credit and business loans for home construction.
Treasurer
As a lifelong resident of the Lower Ninth Ward, Antoinette Ackerson is very much aware of the struggles in rebuilding the Lower 9th Ward. Our community is a unique environment and with loving people that have endured tough resilience and have heightened the probabilities of rebuilding following Hurricane Katrina. Antoinette is a homeowner and regularly attends church in the surrounding area. She has been a New Orleans city employee for the last 25 years and has also worked in the private sector. She served as president of the Greater New Orleans Foster and Adoptive Parent Association and on the State Board of Louisiana Foster and Adoptive Parent Association as Nominee Chairperson. She is also a former board member of the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development.
Secretary
Andrew Stephens is a local Architect, Designer, and resident of the Lower 9th ward. Since 2010 Andrew has worked on issues related to recovery, resiliency, and sustainability within the Lower 9 neighborhood, initially as a Staff member of the Make It Right Foundation, and now as a Project Manager at John C Williams Architects. A resident of the Lower 9th Ward and Holy Cross Neighborhood since 2013, Andrew actively serves as a Board Member for the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association and for Historic Green. He is actively involved in collaborating and working with various Community Groups to help return the Lower 9th ward to a position where it serves as an example for a resilient, sustainable, and equitable community.
Member
Dave Macaulay was a founding member of the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development. He works as a Technical Writer at SKW Enterprise Solutions, Inc.
Dave is also the author of The Ecological Engineer: Glumac (2011 Ecotone Publishing) and Integrated Design: Mithun (2008 Ecotone Publishing) and the
co-author of The Ecological Engineer (2005, Ecotone Publishing).
Currently: freelance writer specializing in A/E/C and financial services markets - content development for Web sites and online channels (incl. site architecture, flash and DVD scripts, email marketing campaigns); branding and positioning; print campaigns and publishing
Previously: manager of marketing communications for American Century Investments (incl. shareholder communications, direct marketing campaigns, market strategy for high net worth retention program)
Editor: AIPE Facilities magazine, Ground Water Age magazine, Groundwater Digest magazine
Specialties: Architecture, engineering, construction, financial services, technology, social media, Web sites, white papers, magazine articles, publishing, corporate capabilities, branding, market research, SEO, blogs, ghostwriting, annual reports
