Kelli Stevens was in search of a place for her children to learn through play. After a stint working at the Children's Museum of Houston, the Baton Rouge native returned to her hometown wishing that the city offered a place for children to learn and explore. But of course, the idea took hold and after confirming that there were no other plans for a local children’s museum, she decided to take on the project herself. Along with her friend Clarice Gordon and others that later joined their cause, Kelli worked for 14 years to make her dream a reality. Enter the Knock Knock Children's Museum. In this episode, we explore the creative ideas, learning zones and unique admission process that ensures children of all ages and backgrounds can enjoy the games, interactive displays and experiences of a museum made just for them.

#71: Kelli Stevens - Knocking on the Door of a Child's Curiosity

altBR is a Baton Rouge focused podcast where our host Jacob Jolibois and occasional co-host Abe Felix sit down with the people who are in the trenches, working to make this city a better place. From entrepreneurs, to designers, to musicians, to politicians, to chefs, to civil rights activists, join us as we listen to their stories of progress, hope and goodness in this city.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Chris Meyer is the CEO of New Schools Baton Rouge. He was the first in his family to go to college and, after a brief stint teaching in the broken education system of New Orleans, his experiences sent him on a quest to fix it. Starting from the top down, he began working to change education on a policy level before going on to start the organization New Schools Baton Rouge who is actively working to recruit, launch, and support schools with proven track records of success to provide Baton Rouge families with excellent education options. In this episode, we look at the controversial school letter grading system, the changes in policy to gives schools more autonomy, the impact of charters on the Louisiana education system and the vision for Baton Rouge becoming the first city in the country to have every school ranked A or B.

#115: Chris Meyer - The Journey to A+

When we first started this show, one of the questions we often asked is, "what do you think is one of the most pressing issues our city faces." And often, the response that we got was the racial divides. With the death of Alton Sterling and the two police officers back in 2016, the conversations on race were suddenly more prevalent. Leading much of this discussion, was the organization, Dialogue on Race. In this episode as altBR comes to a conclusion, we wanted to circle back to this important topic to leave you all with a bit more perspective, and hopefully, some valuable information that you can use in your own experiences and conversations on race moving forward. To help us with this, we’re in the studio today with Maxine Crump, who is the President and CEO of Dialogue on Race Louisiana. The model for this program was created more than 20 years ago. Maxine worked with YWCA past board presidents, community organizations like Louisiana Council on Human Relations and professors of History, Political Science and Sociology from both LSU and Southern University to develop a structured program of six consecutive two hour weekly sessions based on scholarly reading materials and led by a bi-racial team of trained facilitators. Maxine has remained involved in a leadership role in Dialogue at all levels, including training facilitators from its inception.

#114: Maxine Crump - The Language of Race

You can feel their positive energy and smiles from a mile away - Raina Vallot and Sherin Dawud are the founders of the Baton Rouge-based women's empowerment non-profit, Power Pump Girls. In this episode, we talk about their many successes and their recent setbacks with the Strike Conference that they had planned for this Fall, the resilience of their community, and the impact of their work with girls from junior high to adulthood.

#113: Sherin Dawud and Raina Vallot - One Strike Doesn't Mean You're Out

David Jones, II - also known by his stage name JST DAVID - is an artist, singer/songwriter and recording artist and was our second guest ever on this podcast, over two years ago! We brought him back in the studio to find out what he has been up to and, as it turns out, he's been through quite the journey. From recording with a Grammy-nominated, platinum-selling producer in Los Angeles, to scrapping an entire album only to rewrite and record a whole new one in a month, this guy is true to his art and has poured everything he is in to his mission and vision for what the future could be.

#112: JST DAVID - The Mission of Music

Mina Estrada is the Director of Artist Resources at The Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge. At her core, Mina is a dancer - always has been, always will be. She got a job teaching dance right out of college, got her MFA etc. etc. That's just the tip of the iceberg! She's worked for educational institutions, non-profit organizations and dance troupes for years championing the arts. In fact, over the coming months she'll be teaching and choreographing dance. But in all of her endeavors, her greatest is still to come. In this episode, Mina drops the bomb of an idea that she's been dreaming up and let me tell you, you do NOT want to miss out on this. You heard it here first.

#71: Kelli Stevens - Knocking on the Door of a Child's Curiosity

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