Shaking Out the Good Stuff: Vermilion Parish Students Hold Annual Courir and Collect Food for Needy

(Kaplan, Louisiana) - Some really cool kids in a South Louisiana parish did a touching thing last week and we are here for it.

A group of students in the Lâche Pas Louisiane program in Vermilion Parish held their annual Courir de Mardi Gras in downtown Kaplan on Tuesday, February 25.

But instead of the traditional courir where they went begging for ingredients to make a gumbo, the kids went around asking for non-perishable food items to be donated to the local food bank.

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And by the end of the day, the Lâche Pas group collected a whopping 700 pounds of food!

Our friend and local musician Jason Harrington, who was the teacher for the pilot program and is still heavily involved, took to social media to share some pictures and videos of the event yesterday.

Harrington told us that the students created their own traditional Mardi Gras costumes and learned to sing and play "La Danse de Mardi Gras" (which is basically the official song of courirs across Louisiana).

At the end of the day, the kids' last stop on the Courir was at the food bank where they played for the volunteers and delivered the food collected.

How cool is this?!

About Lâche Pas Louisiane

The Lâche Pas program is an attempt to re-establish the Cajun/Creole culture of Vermilion Parish in the younger generation.

The original curriculum was written and developed in Vermilion Parish and made available to the state of Louisiana through the Louisiana Department of Education.

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Now in its third year, the program was initially started at Rene Rost Middle School in Kaplan. In the second year, the after-school program was spread to JH Williams Middle in Abbeville and Erath Middle.

This year, Gueydan High was added. And now, students go to their Lache Pas classes five days a week as an elective in their schedule.

The curriculum is based on seven pillars of culture: music, art, food, language, dance, history, and folkways.

To learn more about the Lâche Pas Louisiane initiative, visit lachepas.org or follow on Facebook.