Our School at Blair Grocery

On Monday, we visited Our School at Blair Grocery in the Lower 9th Ward. Our School at Blair Grocery is an independent alternative school and sustainability education center. The school educates local teenagers and provides after-school programs. The goal is to combine sustainability thinking with GED-prep education to work towards ending hunger, and building a profitable grocery/food enterprise in the area to drive sustainable community development in the Lower 9th Ward.

The organization is run by Nat Turner and consists of 7-10 volunteers/interns. Turner has watched this develop over the last two years. The GED-prep is taught in a classroom in their building. The sustainability education is developed through the small farm surrounding the property. The kids and volunteers spend everyday composting, planting, building, and harvesting all the different types of vegetables being grown. They have five sectors that drive their farming success. Each person involved rotates through different responsibilities to learn every aspect of growing. When the food is ready to be distributed, they sell it at farmer's markets, to local restaurants, to national and international food distributors, and the local community.

This is an incredible organization that is making a huge impact on the lives of children and teenagers in the Lower 9th Ward. They are quickly becoming the backbone to the recovery and future development of the Lower 9th Ward. We had an incredible time meeting with Turner and are planning on taking the entire group down there later this week.