Its been a long journey, and its been wonderful to see the support and progress in becoming Baton Rouge's premiere Off Grid Art and Community Space. A huge thank you to everyone who has been a part of the process. (Pictured below Otis "Dude" Forbes, Cindy Wonderful, Will Smeltzer, Ellen Ogden, Erin Elliat, Ari Jewell)
For those of you have been following the progress of our Wonderground location, you may have heard that in the early stages of Covid, while everyone was supposed to be on lockdown, someone used that opportunity to unlawfully dump over 300 tires in our driveway. Since then we have been trying to repurpose them, the give them away, to lawfully dispose them as time, and budget allows. (You can only take 5 a day to the processing plant, only when they are open. Being that we are grass roots, volunteer run, most of us have day jobs the same hours they are open. Organizing a one time pick up would've been over $1000 dollars. ). While we did manage to reduce the pile to just over 200 tires.
It has been a long, slow process. I have contacted numerous folks in the BRPD, DEQ, Matt Watson, and more. Wonderground had even been featured on WAFB about those tires, still no avail, so when my church friend Lura Allen told me that she knew someone who could help, I have to admit I was skeptical. But low and behold this angel and Community Activist Matt Thomas said he could help, and he delivered! He helped me personally move over 200 tires to the street for pick up, and with a helping hand from council woman Carolyn Coleman, I am happy to report those tires are GONE FOREVER from Wonderground. (though you may still see some repurposed tires in the community garden).
This makes over 2,000 discarded tires that Matt Thomas has personally been responsible for cleaning up. This many is a true local hero. THANK YOU MATT THOMAS!
