Devin De Wulf turned his love of beans into a New Orleans nonprofit that feeds a neighborhood’s sense of culture and community.
Years ago, De Wulf launched a ragtag neighborhood parade christened the Krewe of Red Beans. By 2020, the Krewe of Red Beans parade was attracting close to 15,000 people. That was also the same year that COVID-19 stalked the city’s Mardi Gras celebration. When his wife, an emergency room doctor, described the comfort homemade food brought to exhausted first responders, an idea sprouted.
“We called it Feed the Frontline. Our parade krewe raised money, bought food, and sent it to the hospitals to support frontline healthcare workers who were truly risking their lives. In the first six weeks, we raised a million dollars.”
The Krewe of Red Beans purchased meals from 45 local restaurants and four coffee shops struggling to survive the shutdown, and employed 35 musicians to deliver food to every hospital in New Orleans. In all, the Krewe of Red Beans raised $20 million and provided 90,000 meals.
“Once we realized the bean parade could be a force for good, we just kept doing more and more,” De Wulf says. “We had responded to a crisis, but we weren’t building anything that would last. I thought it would be better to try to do that, and I was naive and audacious enough to think we could.”
And that’s how Beanlandia was born. In late 2021, De Wulf purchased a 25,000-square-foot warehouse and converted it into a community center, complete with a commercial kitchen and a museum dedicated to all things bean, raising and borrowing the funds needed to bring it to fruition. The final step was finding a financial institution willing to finance the installation of heat and air conditioning – a necessity in a city where summer temperatures reach a sticky 110 degrees.
“A lot of banks weren’t quite sure what this whole Bean Museum-slash-community space was all about,” De Wulf says. “One of our members suggested we check out HOPE, that maybe they were ‘less of a shark than a normal bank.’ Thankfully, HOPE is a community-driven financial institution that understood what this space is all about.”
HOPE consolidated Beanlandia’s debts and financed a new HVAC system, giving Beanlandia an opportunity to really get cooking.
“The financing from HOPE was instrumental for our future. We’re working with an institution that shares the same values and cares about the same things as the Krewe of Red Beans,” De Wulf says. “HOPE is ready to help us grow into our potential.”
Today, Beanlandia is a quirky museum, community gathering place, cultural and arts venue, and kids’ camp, all under one roof and supported by grants, donations, and membership fees as low as $5 per month.
“The revenue we generate goes right back into our community to pay for programming,” De Wulf says. “I’m hopeful that the beans can bring people together. New Orleans is a city with a lot of poverty and inequality. We’re building a social network of different people that become connected. They have a shared identity and a shared space. When bad things happen, we can activate that network to help people. And maybe, just maybe, if we chip away at it like that, then we can make our city safer and more equitable.”