Energy star - Dan Webre

September 3 - For nine months, Dan Webre has been a regular fixture around the Alliance office, developing the facilities at our BuildSmart Learning Center, organizing materials, performing database entry, transferring web content, tabling at events and even tutoring Green Corps members in writing. But when he is not at the Alliance, Dan Webre's other life is teaching English composition at nearby Xavier University – two worlds that he is seeking to bring together.

Dan's relationship with the Alliance started with a chance meeting at a Magazine Street coffee shop last December with Alliance Sustainable Rebuild Coordinator Forest Bradley-Wright. Since returning to his native Louisiana from Princeton, where he studied education, Dan had been looking to get involved in environmental work. Dan says the Alliance offered a way to bring together education, environmental issues and a desire to come home to Louisiana.

And for Dan, working at the Alliance is not only a personal endeavor. “Volunteering with the Alliance was a way to get familiar with the organization and to get a better idea of what it takes to interact with our work,” he explains. The classes that he teaches at Xavier, part of a curriculum that emphasizes global citizenship, have a service learning component. Dan is working to connect his students with Alliance work by weatherizing homes and performing other work, then writing about their experiences. “We are trying to use writing not only for community building but as a way to solve real world problems,” he says. “I want them to think about global issues and be able to do something in their community – I want it to be about community building.”

Thanks to Dan, this week, the first group of Xavier students toured the Alliance to get an introduction to our work. We at the Alliance want to thank Dan Webre for all of his hard work and for the vision that he has shown in making these connections between Xavier and the Alliance.