We're excited to be able to communicate with the community through this blog in the coming months. It will serve alongside other technologies we have incorporated through our website, including forums, twitter, and facebook.
How did enviRenew get its start?
After Katrina, the Salvation Army realized that more was needed, more demanded. Our response, Envirenew, is a comprehensive strategy for community renewal. It is doing the most good in our neighborhoods and for the future of our city.
At the heart of hope, there is renewal.
Through Envirenew, we inspire homes that are true to the character and traditions of New Orleans. We develop them to green home sustainability standards, incorporating advanced mitigation and planned remediation. We lead soundly structured, innovative financing to make the homes affordable. And we give special grants to the teachers and first responders who are the core of viable neighborhood communities.
In addition to building new homes, we help returning neighbors retrofit their existing homes to the same standards we apply to our own. We developed our standards with the assistance of nationally recognized authorities. Harvard Business School helped devise our financing programs. And donors across the country invested in Envirenew because they knew the Salvation Army would do it right.
To date, Envirenew is part of a $70 million act of faith in our city’s future. It is constantly evolving as we discover new opportunities for renewal, new imperatives for action. At the cutting edge of social practice, we are engaged in an ongoing reinterpretation of our unchanging mission. At the point where hope meets possibility, we are applying all the leverage of our experience, resources and commitment to do what the Army can: the work of salvation.
