Junior League of Lafayette continued its Mission to support collaboration for lasting community change by serving as a backer for the 24 Hour Citizen Project on November 11 at the Acadiana Center for the Arts.
The 24 Hour Citizen Project connects people with community-focused ideas with expertise and financial backers to make those ideas happen. The event was created for citizens to impact our community directly through the pursuit of citizen-led projects.
Backers are like investors but are contributing to their community instead of a business. The backers come from a diverse group of local businesses and organizations showcasing the communities, collective investment, and its betterment.
Junior League of Lafayette President Roya Boustany said she’s excited for the League to serve as a backer and be in the forefront of where new ideas for lasting community change begin.
"Junior League being here is vitally important to the mission that we seek out in continuing to seek new frontiers which is a part of our association prayer,” she said. "We've been an incubator in the community for 66 years -- this is where ideas are formed, and impact begins. I am really excited for Junior League to be a backer this year because this is where ideas are happening.”
After teams pitched their ideas, they were judged by the backers and the winning projects were selected. Winning teams received a monetary award ranging from $2,400 to $3,750. You can find a list of all of this year’s winners here.
Since 2016, the 24 Hour Citizen Project has helped crowd-fund more than 30 citizen-led community projects and given out almost $150,000 in funding.
Butch Roussel, the organization’s visionary and founder, summed up his vision beautifully: dream it, pitch it, fund it, do it.