featured projects
White Boot Brigade
Go Fish on Film
Crescent City
Farmers Market
Each season, the Crescent Fund entertains proposals to fund projects that benefit vendors, shoppers and/or the community. We have created a pool of funds for social investment at the market. The Crescent Fund will disperse cash investments each quarter for up to $500. These cash infusions will be returned to the market after 6 months through time, talent or treasure.
Our social enterprise would still be on the drawing board were it not for the investments made by individuals and organizations back in the 1990s when New Orleans couldn’t find its way out of the trick bag of violence and a fifteen-year-long recession.
Meeting peak season supply with neighborhood demand for food that is good, clean and fair is the mission behind our Peak Season Brigades. This expansion of our emblematic White Boot Brigade of Louisiana shrimpers enables us to feature other products. On Saturday, December 13, 2008, the White Boot Brigade returned to the Lower Ninth Ward for its mobile sales of jumbo shrimp directly from fisher to shopper. Joining forces with the fledgling monthly Sankofa Marketplace, we also shared with them our marketing know-how and resources.
Learning, sharing and growing, marketumbrella.org cultivates community markets that utilize local resources to bolster authentic local traditions. We believe that ambitious social, health, environmental and financial goals are achieved if trust and respect are present. We envision communities of market umbrellas, like flowers in the field, opening all over the world for the public good.