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Meet the volunteers helping save Theatre Baton Rouge; efforts to get more girls to play trumpet

Girls Play Trumpet Too class
Courtesy of Troy Sawyer
Girls Play Trumpet Too class

The Central Wetlands Reforestation Collective recently launched an initiative to plant 63,000 thousand trees in Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes. This is part of larger efforts to restore the bayou ecosystems that have been impacted by coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion and hurricanes.

In October, we reported on the early stages of this project. Today, we check back in with Verite’s Lue Palmer who recently attended a day of volunteer tree planting.

Last month, we brought you the story of Theatre Baton Rouge, which was in danger of closing in its 78th season due to rising production costs and budget mismanagement. Since then, board members, volunteers and the theater’s one full-time employee have come together to save the beloved institution — and have already broken their initial fundraising goal.

Theatre Baton Rouge Board treasurer Pete Rizzo tells us how he helped balance the budget and volunteer costumer and Central High student Sammie Vaughan discusses her experience as a volunteer costumer.

A professional trumpet player and New Orleans native is sharing his passion for the instrument with a new project, Girls Play Trumpets Too. His goal is to introduce young women to the trumpet and increase representation in a male-dominated field of the music industry.

Founder Troy Sawyer joins us for more on the inspiration behind his new organization and what he hopes to accomplish.

Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Karen Henderson. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber and assistant producer is Aubry Procell. Our engineer is Garrett Pittman.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at 12 and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, Google Play and wherever you get your podcasts. 

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Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!

Karen Henderson is an award-winning journalist whose stories have aired nationally on NPR.
Alana Schreiber is the managing producer for the live daily news program, Louisiana Considered. She comes to WWNO from KUNC in Northern Colorado, where she worked as a radio producer for the daily news magazine, Colorado Edition. She has previously interned for Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul.