center Image
Trafigura Gives $1.1 Million to New Orleans Center for Creative
Arts
Largest gift in the art institute’s history
Leading commodities trader also gives $200,000 to help bring
new teachers to NOLA
NEW ORLEANS, June 27 – Trafigura AG, a subsidiary of Trafigura,
the international commodities trading company, today announced that
it will provide a $1.125 million gift to the New Orleans Center for
Creative Arts (NOCCA), representing the largest donation ever given
to NOCCA. In addition, Trafigura AG will give $200,000 to Teach For
America to increase the number of teachers they bring in to help
close the educational achievement gap in New Orleans.. Trafigura is
also exploring the possibility of doing business in Louisiana.
“To work with these wonderful organizations within New Orleans
is a very exciting experience for Trafigura,” said Graham Sharp, a
Trafigura founding partner who traveled to New Orleans from London
to announce the gift. “Trafigura has an interest in the future of
this great city. We want to serve as a proactive partner in the
rebuilding of New Orleans. We would like to help create a vibrant
business environment and expand on the city’s rich culture and arts
community, which has made New Orleans great for generations. These
gifts are consistent with Trafigura’s overarching philanthropic
ethos: To provide greater educational and cultural opportunities
for youth around the world.”
Sally Perry, Executive Director of The NOCCA Institute, NOCCA’s
community non-profit foundation that received the donation,
responded: “We are deeply honored and grateful for this new
partnership with a company of Trafigura’s international
prominence.”
Presented as a three-year challenge grant, Trafigura’s donation
represents an exciting opportunity for NOCCA and its supporters
statewide to step up to the plate and match this investment in our
young people.” Gary Alan Wood, President and CEO of NOCCA,
added: “This gift’s impact on our efforts to renew and
strengthen New Orleans' educational landscape is enormous. There is
no more deserving beneficiary that the talented young artists who
study at NOCCA. They are our future leaders.”
NOCCA is Louisiana’s arts conservatory for high school students,
offering professional training in creative writing, dance, media
arts, music, theatre arts and visual arts to young people across
the state. Enrollment is by audition and there is no tuition.
Trafigura’s gift is intended to be a matching gift and an
encouragement to arts and education supporters across Louisiana to
help support NOCCA’s unique, successful programs. Funds from
Trafigura, matched by local donors, will help provide NOCCA with
additional classroom space; they will also facilitate land
acquisition, architectural planning and design of that space. As a
result, a center named after Trafigura AG will exist on the NOCCA
campus.
In addition, Trafigura will contribute $200,000 to Teach For
America - Greater New Orleans to help increase the number of
corporation members teaching some of the most under-served students
in New Orleans.
“Excellent public education for all our kids is absolutely
critical in rebuilding our city and we are delighted to have
Trafigura’s support as we further our movement to address
educational inequity in New Orleans,” said Mary Garton, executive
director of Teach For America – Greater New Orleans.
Teach For America, the national corporation of outstanding
college graduates who commit to teach in low-income urban and rural
communities for two years and become life-long advocates for
education reform, has been in New Orleans since 1990. This year, to
foster public education reform in the post-Katrina era, Teach For
America is bringing in its largest New Orleans corporation of 100
teachers. Trafigura’s donation will help Teach For America expand
the size of their corporation to 300 by 2010.
“We consider it a great honor to be welcomed so warmly by the
people of New Orleans,” continued Sharp. “We hope that by helping
to nurture the youth of this city, we help to nurture the future of
this city.”
End