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Lakeview, New Orleans Citizens Ad » What will ad be saying?
1(800)644-0320
contact@fundable.com
contact@fundable.com
see below
A MESSAGE FROM HOMELESS
NEW ORLEANIANS
Since the breach of the New Orleans flood protection system on August 29, 2005, we have lived like refugees in our own country. We want to go home.
New Orleans is the pearl of the South for many reasons. Our city is older than the United States itself. We represent history, culture, and the birthplace of Jazz. In hard dollars, the Port of New Orleans is vital to the economic growth of the Gulf South, and literally feeds our nation with regular shipments of grain, coffee, and steel.
These are assets that we, as a nation, cannot afford to leave unprotected, flapping in the breeze, subject to the whim and mercy of nature.
Most citizens of New Orleans, especially those of us in Lakeview, desperately want to return home, re-invest in our land, revitalize our communities, and return our city to commerce. But we can’t in good faith encourage our friends and families to return home with fingers crossed and eyes closed, hoping another Katrina-type event will magically pass us by.
If New Orleans is to become the city we all know it can be, it must start with your support. Please take a stand and demand that Category 5 flood protection be instituted. Please fund the work and direct the Army Corps of Engineers to redesign the system to prevent a new Katrina-type disaster.
With billions in devastated property, a local government in ruins, and an entire city’s population displaced across the nation, the toll of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will be felt for generations to come.
Is it not wiser to spend millions of dollars for adequate flood protection today, and avoid the tens of billions in losses should this happen again?
If you do not act, it will happen again. Sooner or later. It is a statistical inevitability.
In the past three months, we have become experts at waiting. Waiting for flood waters to recede. Waiting for word from family and friends. Waiting to see what our homes and our city has become.
Green grass has turned grey, puffing into tiny clouds of dust as you walk across it. Our homes are covered in fuzzy black mold, mud, Gulf silt, and toxic sewerage. Our possessions lay ruined in the streets.
But we are a proud people, and are eager to take up the challenge of cleaning, restoring, and rebuilding our lives in New Orleans.
Now we are waiting on you.
It is fully within your power to spearhead the rebuilding of our flood protection, and reclaim one of the nation’s most important cities from ruin. You can secure the Port of New Orleans and the surrounding infrastructure, insuring new commerce and economic opportunity. You can safeguard our lives from storm. You can support legislation that would assist the thousands of underinsured families who have nothing left but hope. All of this is in your power.
The displaced residents of Lakeview respectfully ask that you use your power immediately, and help us rebuild our lives and secure a bright future for our children and our children’s children.
We appreciate your support. The aid and assistance we have received to date has been critical to caring for our loved ones and restoring our lives. Like everyone, the families of Lakeview just want to be home this holiday season.
Only you can make that happen.
With Peace and Joy this Holiday Season,
Citizens of Lakeview
New Orleans, Louisiana
OUR FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS.
PAID FOR BY HOMELESS NEW ORLEANS RESIDENTS SCATTERED ACROSS THE COUNTRY.
Ad comment
Also, we placed our safety and prosperity in the hands of the federal government when we trusted them to manage the waterways via the Army Corps of Engineers whose misdesign contributed to the billions of dollars of destruction. An American government of strong moral people should not just say "oops" "too bad" "we can't afford to help you now." Collectively, as Americans we must dig in and solve the problem with ingenuity, committment and money.
Finally, I believe that people across America want to help -- they have helped and will continue to help--I believe they were heartbroken that such an event could happen in our homeland. But the help we need now is to become an active citizen and ask them to say yes to funding of levee 5 protection. The week beginning August 29th was a week when Americans collectively felt the same disappointment and outrage at the governmental assistance in disaster. Please remember that we are still living it.
I think the ad spends too much time describing our desolate landscape. I think you have adequately done that in the first few paragraphs.
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widen the scope!
I think the ad campaign your group is organizing has the power to do more and would therefore recommend some amendments to the text:
1. "Most citizens of New Orleans, especially those of us in Lakeview, desperately want to return home" - I suggest: "The citizens of New Orleans and the surrounding areas desperately want to return home." While it's true that some may not want to return home, I think the message is more powerful when the assumption is that everyone wants to return home. Include the surrounding areas because funding from the federal level will not be New Orleans-centric. While the Lakeview reference gives a human, neighborhood touch, it raises the question of how widespread your call is. Others have raised this issue on fundable.org and I think they make a good point. Widen the scope by avoiding specific neighborhood references (this is also important in terms of attracting funding for this and future ad campaigns from a wider public!)
2. "return our city to commerce" - Not sure of the verb "to commerce", though I know what it means.
3. "But we can’t in good faith encourage our friends and families to return home" - I'd add businesses to friends and families...
4. "Please take a stand and demand that Category 5 flood protection be instituted." This is a tough one: many will ask why it is necessary to build an extensive Cat 5 protection system for areas that a. are devastated anyway and b. will probably be uninhabited and vulnerable for the years it will take to build such a system (and perhaps even after such a system is built). Some will argue that a geographically limited Cat 5 system, wetlands restoration, and focus on densification on less vulnerable areas should be the emphasis. I personally think that rebuilding a better New Orleans requires much more than a protection system and that such an ad campaign can couple several urgent priorities to which federal assistance should go. Coordinating with other groups may mean that the Lakeview residents consider these arguments. As it stands, your ad text focuses on Cat 5 levees...
5. "The displaced residents of Lakeview respectfully ask that you use your power immediately, and help us rebuild our lives and secure a bright future for our children and our children’s children." - Great sentence, but again I think the Lakeview-specific element may detract from the objectives.
6. PAID FOR BY HOMELESS NEW ORLEANS RESIDENTS SCATTERED ACROSS THE COUNTRY. - I'm not sure this is true, especially as the ad makes repeated reference to residents of Lakeview, many of whom are already back in New Orleans, I hear. Non-New Orleanians may be contributing to your campaign, in addition to New Orleanians in New Orleans. You might consider something like Paid for by citizens and friends of New Orleans, or ...by Americans. Period.
Best of luck! I hope we can coordinate efforts in the future!
Michael Rolufs
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inclusivity of non-Lakeview New Orleanians
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