INNOVATORS Gold Award - New Orleans City Business

NONPROFIT
PHOTO BY FRANK AYMAMI
Arc of Greater New Orleans controller Vance Levesque, second from right, takes a break from sorting beads with, from left, Terri Hingle, Randy Borne, Dawn Garfield and Jeff Regan.
Arc of Greater New Orleans
Key innovation: system for collecting and recycling
Mardi Gras beads
Biggest suppliers: area universities, high school and
civic groups
Where they’re based: New Orleans
Top executive: Cliff Doescher, executive director
Year introduced: 1953
2007 figures: more than 30 tons of beads recycled;
more than 50 tons projected for this year
VANCE LEVESQUE, CONTROLLER of the Arc of
Greater New Orleans, has discovered something many
New Orleanians have pondered over for years: a way to
make boxed-up Mardi Gras beads resourceful.
A “born and raised” New Orleans native, Levesque
combined his involvement in the Sierra Club with his
dedication to Arc of Greater New Orleans to make the art
of collecting beads green.
“I joined the Sierra Club in 1995, and I learned all about
recycling and what it means to go green,” he said. “(It) was
the place where I learned … how we need to be responsible
for helping our communities be a better place to live.”
For many years,the nonprofit Arc has been soliciting Mardi
Gras beads to provide piecework opportunities for adults with
disabilities,whose caregivers thought they were too disabled to
enter the work force. The organization has since eliminated its
piecework practice and, instead, employs people with intellectual
disabilities within the organization’s overall work force.
Levesque also has expanded Arc to area universities,
including Tulane, the University of New Orleans,
Louisiana State University and Dillard University.
“Tulane University has made a major effort into recycling,”
he said, “and in May of 2008, they put recycling
bins in all of the dorms and collected over 6,000 pounds
of beads as students left for the summer.”
AmeriCorps has also joined the effort by sending
youth volunteers to help with recycling the past two summers,
and a local Boy Scout has made recycling beads his
Eagle Scout project.
“Vance has been very active in the local chapter of the
Sierra Club and has combined that interest — passion —
with opportunities available at Arc to help us get started on
a green path,” said executive director Cliff Doescher,
adding that the recycled-bead project has inspired them to
convert other operations, such as janitorial services and
grounds and landscaping, to green processes.
Arc also recycles newspapers, cell phones and ink jet
cartridges. They are in the process of rebuilding their
sustainable organic garden to grow herbs and vegetables
for their Vintage Garden Kitchen, which has just begun
to serve healthy soups to the community.•
— Amy Ferrara Smith
New Orleans CityBusiness 43A