Conversations with Devin De Wulf

Today we’d like to introduce you to Devin De Wulf.

devin , we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
17 years ago I created a parade. I was inspired by my love of Beans (and New Orleans’s love of them) and also inspired by the amazing culture I was seeing around me in New Orleans.

The first year of the parade, 25 folks joined me. We had no crowd – but we had bean costumes, a keg of beer in a shopping cart, and the Treme Brass Band! We had fun. We decided to do it again the next year. And the next.

Over time it grew. I also figured out ways to use the group as a “force for good”. I required krewe members to volunteer, for example, which helped us weed out selfish people. By 2020, we had grown to a group of 500 krewe members that were all pretty nice, caring folks. When we paraded in Feb. 2020, we had probably 15,000 people there.

But 2020 was a tough year for New Orleans – our carnival had coincided with COVID-19. Hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world came to our city. We spread COVID around our community as we danced on the streets and in nightclub parties all week. It was a super-spreader.

COVID impacted our family in a way that most did not – my wife is an ER doctor in our city’s safety-net hospital. She was risking her life to help support patients – before they had protective gear or even understood how the virus spread. On day three, a nurse brought cookies to my wife’s team in the hospital. She told me about it when she came home that night. Inspired by my wife’s work anecdote, I had an idea to create a “food love” effort. We hatched a plan that night and named it “Feed the Front LIne NOLA” – then we asked krewe members to donate. I posted on instagram.

six weeks later, we had raised over $1,000,000 and created the largest effort-of-it’s-kind in America.

35 musicians were employed to deliver food to every ICU and ER in our entire city, twice a day. This created $100,000 worth of gigs for the musicians, who were otherwise out of work. 45 restaurants were supported with our $900,000 worth of food orders. Doctors, Nurses, and hospital staff felt the love of the community as they worked tirelessly to battle our city’s first COVID wave.

This was the moment our little bean parade proved that it could in fact, be a force for good.

Since then, I have worked to grow our long-term impact. We have taken a leap of faith and purchased an old warehouse in Bywater and worked to make it into a “Bean Museum” that is the home of our organization and also a cultural / community space. By building a model of sustainable tourism, I hope to turn this space into a renewable resource for our community – that is the “Beaning of LIfe”

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Many struggles and challenges along the way. The most surprising was learning that, when you accomplish big things, there will be haters who try to tear down reputations using slander or misinformation. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies, as communities give into legacies of distrust and mistreatment.

But I have learned that this is part of the path – and I just work to the best of my ability to follow our “north star”.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I was a middle school social studies teacher for a decade. This taught me alot about working with people, motivating folks, and planning.

But Im also an artist at heart. I am a muralist and a self-taught folk artist. And the creator of a parade.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
Many community members have supported my work (thanks ya’ll!)

It really takes many-hands to pitch in for this type of thing. There are over 1,000 community members that have supported this project (and continue to support it)

I also have big thanks to mentors like Vince Heyward of Camellia Beans, Mr. Benny Jones of the Treme Brass Band, and countless of New Orleanians who have inspired me with their cultural creations.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kreweofredbeans.org
• Instagram: @redbeansparade

Image Credits
photos are Katie Sikora, except my family portrait, which was taken by Bethany Bandera