Leadership in New Orleans: Ellie

As great as the Southwestern College leadership team is, we were only a few of many leaders in New Orleans. On our different service work days, we met a few other leaders, one of which was Ellie. Ellie was one of the people who is a part of the organization that helped distribute food to families in need in New Orleans. While working with her, she personified some of the greatest qualities of a leader, but one really stood out to me, encouraging the heart. She made sure that at the end of the day, we all were aware of the effects our work had done that day. She told us we distributed c~10,170 lbs of food to over 300 families. Since Ellie is a leader, she is a part of the leadership system. In this system, she a leader, the volunteers and the Southwestern College Leadership Team students were the followers, feeding families in need and providing them with resources was the change trying to be facilitated, and some of the contextual factors were poverty levels of New Orleans and the lift of the CDC's Eviction Moratorium. In New Orleans, about 25% of the population is in poverty, struggling to make ends meet and often deciding between bills to pay. The Eviction Moratorium was put in place by the CDC so that people affected by the Covid 19 pandemic financially could not be evicted from their homes, but on August 1st 2021, it was lifted, meaning some people would face eviction. All these factors added to the need that Ellie and the rest of this team were trying to remedy.Read more