Culture AID NOLA’s mission is to direct no-barrier, no-stigma aid to underserved members of New Orleans' cultural community with dignity, grace and hospitality.

Culture Aid NOLA seeks to alleviate food insecurity in New Orleans by collaborating with upstream an

Goal One: We are expanding our work with downstream partners, mostly small mutual aid organizations, to utilize our logistical and fundraising capabilities so that more aid can flow to the broader community.

Goal Two: We are seeking to acquire vehicles in the service of our expansion program, so that we can purchase and deliver food to a greater number of smaller downstream partners.

Goal Three: We are strengthening our staffing, both operational and administrative, to be ready for expansion and long-term sustainability.

Several of our key staff are relatively new to nonprofit leadership, and we have made efforts to provide education and training for them to meet the organization's needs and their own development goals.

In May 2021, both the USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program waiver and the Farmers to Families Food Box program, both put in place to alleviate hunger during the pandemic-driven economic crisis, abruptly ended. However, the crisis itself has not ended in New Orleans, as we can see from the ever-present long lines at our distributions. In the wake of these program eliminations, we have received many calls from organizations who had been working to ensure food security, but who now find themselves without resources or channels to continue. Many of these groups would be unable to meet the USDA’s stringent requirements for food banks—paperwork, storage, logistics, staffing capacity, and so on—but still see ongoing need in their communities and do not want to leave them uncared for. Culture Aid NOLA is expanding to allow these organizations and groups to continue their work. We already provided logistical services and bulk purchasing power for our own distributions and deliveries to several other organizations, but are now scaling up to do this for many more groups. We plan to purchase a dedicated refrigerated truck, staffed by CAN and making twice-weekly bulk purchases, to deliver fresh foods to a network of churches and community centers around the area, making no-barrier, no-stigma food accessible to all on a hyper-local, community-led basis. We also plan to buy a pickup truck to support daily operations and a pallet jack to be used for distributions, both of which will greatly increase the productivity of our small staff. Finally, we are increasing our staff to four full-time employees (from two full-time and two part-time). Culture Aid NOLA will arrange collaborative mass scale purchasing for this emerging network and dedicate staff time and logistical resources to deliver food to their sites. We seek to work with a multitude of organizations, with the only stipulation that the food continue to move barrier-free.