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NOWAC has officially kicked-off its "$1.00 Restore-A-Home" campaign, which is designed to continue raising awareness that much work and resources are needed in restoring and preserving homes throughout the city. In April 2007, a crew of carpenters and community members from the Boston area will head down to New Orleans to assist in the restoration of Andaiye Alimayu's (one of the members of Zion Trinity) and Charmaine Neville's homes. Zion Trinity is a group of songwriters who sing in the genres of Roots (Churchical) Reggae, Jazz, Funk, Spirituals, and African Ritual Chants from the African Diaspora. Charmaine Neville's band offers a blend of New Orleans music out of the Neville family tradition. We have begun planning for the next homes in this ongoing project.
NOWAC is currently organizing the "New Orleans Revival 2007 Tour" for late September, 2007; this is a benefit tour to bring a number of New Orleans artists before the public in a series of east coast cities, culminating in Boston. The proceeds of this benefit will go entirely to the artists and to the home restoration projects. We have identified a number of artists for this tour, and are in the initial stages of contact with a number of possible major acts to headline the tour.
Multiple mini-benefits are scheduled or planned for various venues around Boston, to both increase awareness of what needs to be done and to solicit material support for the restoration projects. The first of these is at the Belt Sanding Race 2007 in Jamaica Plain, Boston on SuperBowl weekend this February; this event is hosted by some of the participants in the initial kitchen project, and represents their continuing support of the New Orleans goals. Others will occur at music and spoken word venues in the Boston area.
Additionally, with the help and collaboration of organizations like Habitat for Humanity and Building Restores throughout the country, we are working to house artists both through home ownership assistance as well as in rental assistance programs throughout their city.
In order to increase the resources we can bring to bear on these home restoration projects, we have begun the process of incorporation and 501C3 certification, to facilitate our solicitation of individual contributors and grant application to non-profit organizations.
We are currently in the initial stages of creating a web site, which will both raise awareness of the work that needs to be done, and the work that is being done. Another major goal of the web site will be to provide web site assistance to New Orleans artists, as well as to provide an information center for other resources available to help the journey home.
We will continue and enlarge the home restoration projects, and the projects to facilitate home ownership and rental assistance.
We will continue the program of frequent "mini-benefits" in the Boston area, as well as larger follow-on tours on the scale and scope of the "New Orleans Revival 2007 Tour".
We will establish a Women Referral/Networking Service for artists. A similar service created by one of the members of the collective proved to be very successful for women in the Los Angeles area.
We will be purchasing a building to be converted into a Performance Center in the Bywater area. This building will include studio space, exhibition space and resource spaces.
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