Nancy Duplechain / Ville Platte Gazette
The Mamou Town Council discussed vendor issues for Mardi Gras, heard about a new program to prevent underage drinking, and was introduced to the new executive director of the Evangeline Chamber of Commerce and Evangeline Tourism Commission.
The council on Jan. 8 heard from Lorenzo Richard who was there to discuss underage drinking. Richard was joined by Carleen Bellard, executive director of the Community Action Program.
Richard, a Mamou native, is a representative from the Louisiana Department of Health/Office of Behavior Health. He is over a coalition team in Evangeline Parish, trying to come up with prevention measures to stop the onset of underage drinking and the issues that lead to underage drinking. The coalition consists of 15-20 people and meet the second Wednesday of every month.
Richard said surveys are sent throughout the school system of Evangeline Parish and turned over to the state of Louisiana, which are then given to the LSU Agriculture Center, which runs the data and sends it back to the state and back to Richard’s coalition.
“Unfortunately it shows Evangeline Parish, with a host of other parishes, had an issue. The issue was the underage drinking rate was higher than the state of Louisiana. We are number one in the whole Acadiana area. There are other parishes that have that issue as well.”
Richard said the coalition receives the funding for prevention measures to the Evangeline Parish area. Since last February, they have set the foundation in the Ville Platte area. They recently adopted the student ambassador program, which consists of training 10 students from each school in the parish. The students are trained in life skills and positive action curriculum training. Richard also said they have joined with the Community Action Program to implement their training. They hosted the Youth Blast at the Mamou Skating Rink last year where the main goal was to teach teens how to live boldly as smart teens.
“The state said there was a risk factor here in Evangeline Parish,” Richard said. “That risk factor is because we have a lot of kids who could not read, so that leads to underage drinking. Why is that? Because they can’t really read the wording on the bottles.” He said they are looking forward to joining forces with the town of Mamou to combat underage drinking.
Richard’s program is funded by the state.
Bellard said, “One of my programs that touches my heart is teen outreach program. When I took over as executive director of the Community Action Program, that teen program was dormant. Now that we began that program, we serve 205 students. It’s not funded by any federally funded program or any state government. It’s funded by local donations.”
She said they were fortunate to get other organizations to come in to help at-risk children with life skills, feeding programs, sexual assault counseling, etc. “Most of the kids in our community we serve are low-income, at-risk students, so we are able to bring these programs to them at no cost to the families. We just want to thank Lorenzo and the coalition, which I am a part of and proud to be a part of, because children are my passion. We commend him, and we want to keep helping our at-risk youth.”
With Mardi Gras coming soon, Mayor Ricky Fontenot asked the council to be aware of the problems the town faced when it comes to food vendors during the popular tourist holiday. Fontenot said out-of-town vendors have been calling Town Hall to ask if they can set up food booths or trucks during Mardi Gras. The town ordinance only allows for local organizations to sell food.
However, Fontenot said some of the organizations are not providing enough food for the amount of attendees. Fontenot said the problem with the local, non-profit organizations is “They’ll come in for one day, make a bunch of money, then there’s no food out in the streets anymore.” He also said it is usually the same volunteers doing all the work, and they are burnt out after the first day. Also, there are fewer organizations than in previous years.
The council agreed to see if the problem persists this year, and if so, consider amending the ordinance for next year, to allow outside food vendors, and/or allowing local businesses to obtain a three-day permit to sell food.
Dr. Gwen Fontenot, president-elect of the Evangeline Chamber of Commerce, introduced new executive director of the Evangeline Chamber of Commerce and the Evangeline Parish Tourist Commission, Erin Hoffpauir, a local from Vidrine.