Ray Reggie Recommends…

Hey all,

I know it is Sunday and we are all trying to relax but I just found this article about the upcoming elections for Mayor of New Orleans and the possible candidates.  Wonder who else will be popping out of the woodwork before the campaigns actually begin??  Read the article about the candidates here…

Any opinions?  Let me know…i would love to hear your ideas!

–Ray Reggie–

Raymond Reggie Says One More Tiny Step Forward!

With the announcement that the New York Times has assigned a full time correspondent to the New Orleans area to continue reporting to the rest of the country, I am becoming optimistic.  Keeping our progress in the National news can’t do anything but help.  It will help to remind the rest of the country that we still need their help, which means the volunteers with keep coming, people will continue moving back and new businesses will continue joining our community.  All of which are more baby steps forward to the rebuilding of New Orleans after the horrors of Katrina.  Read more about the new reporter here…

–Raymond Reggie–

Raymond Reggie Applauds

I can’t say that when I think of teenagers I think of volunteers but these Lutheran teens have proved me wrong.  It wouldn’t surprise me to see 50-100 teens come to New Orleans to help our city but thousands?  That is awesome!  Each of the 37,000 attendees (most of whom are young people) at the July 22-26 gathering have paid their own way to a city still recovering from Hurricane Katrina to work on about 150 community service projects – which include cleaning up neighborhoods, painting schools, rebuilding homes and running day camps.  ELCA youth gatherings are held once every three years. The 2006 event also included service projects, such as reading with children at the Boys and Girls Club and serving food at food banks. But this year’s gathering is said to be even bigger.  The Lutheran youths are engaging in worship, Bible study, learning and prayer, also.  Read more about these teens here…

Ray Reggie Issues a Standing Ovation

This is one amazing person.  Patricia Vile is 67 years old and does not live in New Orleans.  She visited it once.  Now she organizes and goes on volunteer trips to work in New Orleans.  She has started her own charity that sends teams of volunteers to New Orleans to lend a hand.  She has 11 groups of 25 to 40 volunteers scheduled through May of 2010.  While they are there they also get a private tour of the city, and Vile arranges to have speakers talk to the volunteers.  In addition, they work in soup kitchens or help restore the wetlands, a natural buffer against hurricanes.  I hope I offer that much to the world when I am 67!  Read more about this amazing women.

–Raymond Reggie–

Raymond Reggie Needs You!

JTRA’s Kitchen serves hot lunches to the community free of charge since they are still trying to rebuild , and get their homes , and lives together. We also are serving a large population of homeless people. Many of the homeless have jobs, but do not make enough money to pay the high rent, so they and their children are living on the streets of New Orleans.

We serve lunch Monday through Thursday from 11:30 to 1:30 pm to those that qualify.

Additionally, JTRA is now serving Hot breakfast on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursdays from 8:30 am to 10:00 am

Just The Right Attitude Needs Your Help!

Help Raymond Reggie feed the needy in New Orleans.

Time to give back.!  Give just a couple hours!  Reggie and the food bank needs you!

Kids (10 -15 w/ a parent/guardian and 16+) welcome!

–Raymond Reggie–

Raymond Reggie Wonders…?

What is going to happen to the people of our city that are in serious need of health care?  Raymond Reggie sees people at the JTRA food bank that he volunteers at all the time, that are in obvious need of health care.  People are sick and they are not getting the help that they need.  What kind of government allows that type of a situation be so prevelant and obvious? Groups of citizens, activists, medical professionals, and preservations are standing against the state’s plans to put disaster assistance money toward a new complex when the state could easily renovate and refurbish the current Charity building. Repairing Charity is a strategy communtity advocates say would return quality care to the region in less time and for less money than new construction.  Advocates argue that the shutting down of Charity, much like the destruction of the city’s public housing, has been a clear sign that poor people just aren’t welcome in the city. Hospital-based services for those without health insurance are almost non-existent. Charity was the central location for the city’s poor and uninsured to come for medical care. Around 176,000 people without insurance were living in New Orleans area before Katrina struck.  Not to mention, by building a new $1.2 billion, 424-bed medical mega-complex, the state plans on tearing down 67 acres of the historic Mid-City area.  How is this plan going to take care of the citizens in need in New Orleans?

–Raymond Reggie–

Ray Reggie’s Favorite Charity

Just came across this article from 2008 about the Just The Right Attitude Food Bank.  It is one of my favorites so I thought I would share it.  Here is an excerpt from the article that is available in the Nola.com’s archives…

Woman’s bad times help others

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Sheila Stroup

Just the Right Attitude is more than a food bank in eastern New Orleans.

“Debra South gives out everything from hot meals to hugs,” Ray Reggie said. “She has a personal rapport with everyone. She understands what it means to need help.”

Ray Reggie (now Chairman of the Board of JTRA), managing partner with Premier Promotions, serves on the board of Just the Right Attitude along with Troy Duhon, president of Premier Automotive Group.

In 2002, when the men heard about the little food pantry Debra was operating out of her garage, they decided to offer her a space on the second floor of a car dealership. And Just the Right Attitude began to grow.

“We love her cause,” Ray Reggie said. “Everybody wanted to help.”

— Growing out of need —

The idea for the community resource began a decade ago with a trip Debra made to the food stamp office. She was a mother in her 30s fighting ovarian and thyroid cancer, and she’d had to retire from her accounting job. Her first husband had taken off, and she was surviving on disability checks and help from family and friends.

She didn’t make enough money to feed her son and daughter, but she was rudely told she made too much to qualify for food stamps.

“I felt so humiliated,” she said.

She promised God that if she got better she would find a way to help people who were hungry and struggling.

From that promise, and a few shelves of canned goods, grew a United Way agency that doles out hope and 2.5 million pounds of food a year.

When Ray Reggie asked a man what he’d do without Debra’s food bank, he answered, “I would be hungry.”

— Place to get a hand —

In April, Just the Right Attitude, with the help of Ray Reggie, moved into two buildings next to Toyota of New Orleans on the I-10 Service Road. And since then, Debra has been giving out lots of hot meals, boxes of staples and hugs….

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I think it is good to remind myself why the work I do with JTRA is so important and this does. Have a Blessed day.

–Ray Reggie–

You Don’t Have to Live in New Orleans to Help

We love it here, at Raymond Reggie’s Take Responsibility blog, when we see people that don’t even live in New Orleans stepping up to lend a hand or raise money to help recover and rebuild from the devestation we endured with Hurrican Katrina.  In so many places across the country, it is just assumed the New Orleans has been rebuilt and they are back to the same old New Orleans and that is just not the case.  Luckily, many places do realize that many areas, like the Ninth Ward—one of the poorest and hardest hit places in New Orleans, are still floundering and need help. Only 30 percent of the population, if that, is back. There are still a lot of people without running water, without electricity. Rob James, youth leader at Union Baptist Church in Mystic, is well aware of the circumstances in the Gulf Coast and at 25 he has already made two mission trips to the region and will be bringing a group of 35 people—both church members and local residents—to New Orleans from July 29 to Aug. 11 to help with the rebuilding of homes destroyed in the hurricane.  Read more about what this Connecticut community is doing to help New Orleans.

–Raymond Reggie–

Raymond Reggie Applauds Josh Charles!

Josh Charles didn’t grow up in New Orleans.  In fact he didn’t move there until a week before Katrina hit and he had to flee his new home.  But he came back.  He spent a great deal of time in New Orleans growing up and came to love the city and it’s musical inspiration, mentored by Dr. John who is known as the living embodiment of the rich musical heritage exclusive to New Orleans.  Josh Charles began working with Dr. John when he was only 14 years old and that influence inspired him to move to New Orleans himself.  Charles has written a song called “Healing time” that is a benefit single gaining traction in its goal to aid New Orleans’ ongoing recovery from Katrina’s wrath.  Amazon.com agreed to waive its 30% royalty and all proceeds from the song, an exclusive download at the website, will go to the Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans.  BMI, a performing rights group,  is asking stations to play it as a public service announcement.  All I can say is Right On and Thank You!  Read more here…

–Raymond Reggie–

Cute Idea And It Helps The Community

The Adams Brothers, whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina have a plan.  Not only that but they have a plan that was good enough to win them the student division of the Mississippi Technology Alliance Business Plan Competition in Jackson and $5000.  The two brothers with a little help from their friends created a cake shaped like the swirly hurricane symbol used on weather maps.  A hurricane cake or hurricake, as they call it!  They came up with a business plan to make the cakes and they will begin to be sold from a website on August 29th, which is of course the four year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  On top of that, they are going to give $1 from each sale to a hurricane relief fund.  Read more about the brothers here…

–Raymond Reggie–