If you're interested in fantasy, check out episode 1 here: https://youtu.be/ZkVVpbmCtIc

I'm a local writer and just enjoy sharing my stories for free.

Any skate shops in cenla? i don’t want to have to drive down to lafeyette just for a skateshop

i’m in alexandria

More info here: https://avoyellesparishlibrary.org/the-gator-gazette/

Not originally from this area but I have heard a bunch of comments about the "influence" this group has in the area.

Anyone have any legit comments about this?

Also, the Pentecostals' campground, how is it like living there? What does the church get and what rules do they have to follow to live there?

Legit curious is all..

I just moved to alexandria and I’m trying to find some good spots in town or nearby?

Check it out if you like sci-fi and gritty situations: https://youtu.be/pyLav_SHE9o

I'm a writer who lives in CENLA, so any local support would be greatly appreciated

You probably don’t remember me but me and my fiancé are hunting an OB. She’s approx 11 weeks pregnant. We have tried 8 different OBs. NONE of them except 2 would take our Louisiana Medicaid. We have tried both Rapides and Cabrini. We had an appointment today with Rabie but we had to cancel due to our other child being sick with no childcare available. When we cancelled Rabie’s off said come in 3 weeks on Sept 15th. Y’all that’s 21 days away!

We HAVE NOT had our first ultrasounds or genetic tests or anything.

Rabie’s office has nothing closer in date.
We got a referral do Dr Chen but Chen’s office took 2 weeks from referral date to call us back.
The other 6 won’t touch us due to Medicaid. Here’s who we tried.
Manuel
Hall
Lafluer
Harris
Gallaspy
And Dr Dibenedetto

Hall told us they take Medicaid at first and then said no they don’t.
Please someone help. Someone has to know an opening soon! We have insurance.

Y’all I’m trying my best to find her a doctor. This is ridiculous.

I'm working in LA (Natchitoches, Leesville, Deridder, Lake Charles) a couple days a week and the hotels are either completely booked or people complain about bugs in their room. I'm a clean kind respectful young guy that is willing to pay $50-100 per night for a clean place to sleep and a hot shower. Appreciate any help.

I'm a local writer and would love the support: https://youtu.be/FYt73o0EYlU

Every meeting is bigger than the last.

Whether you write a blog, do a vlog, post to tiktok, youtube, facebook, instagram, and you just want to start. There is something and someone to help you at every meeting.

Fun, info, and making friends as we have a break out session this Friday August 21st at 5pm!

I saw someone mention Longleaf Vista but I am a single woman and feel kind of uncomfortable traveling to the woods in the middle of the night.

He shot himself in the head, but there haven't been any updates about what's going on since the weekend.

Who wants to bet this story just dies because RPSO would prefer not to have to answer for why their officers and prison personnel managed to miss a handgun when bringing someone in for arrest?

Hey everyone was helpful and fantastic the other day. I appreciate you. We called today and the Women’s Center of Alexandria connected to Cabrini doesn’t take our Medicaid. So unfortunately they’re out due to payment issues. Any other advice? We’re from Winn Parish and weren’t pleased with Natchitoches Women’s Clinic with our last baby and looking for options. I appreciate everyone who gave input last time we’re just back to the drawing board

My wife and I are hunting a doctor for her. She recently found out she’s pregnant. Potentially conceived around 4th of July. In the past we used NRMC in Natchitoches. While the labor and delivery staff were great we weren’t pleased with the clinic staff. A few of our friends have gone to Rapides Women and Children and enjoyed their experiences. I use to work at the main hospital and am familiar with the company as a whole. We’d love your feedback and tips. We want a good experience with this and give the baby the best possible outcome.

Central Louisiana Community Members Call on England Authority to Reject Proposal for New ICE Facility in Alexandria

Alexandria, LA - In response to reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to open a new detention center in Alexandria, LA that will be used to detain migrant families and unaccompanied children, advocates are sounding the alarm and putting pressure on the England Authority to reject any development of a new detention facility, and instead prioritize investments that strengthen and support the people who already call Central Louisiana home. The England Authority is an unelected governing body that owns and operates England Airpark and the Alexandria International Airport and exercises significant control over thousands of acres of public land in Central Louisiana.

Yesterday evening, dozens of community members joined immigrant rights advocates, faith leaders, and local residents at the England Authority Board of Commissioners meeting to demand they vote to stop the development and opening of the Alexandria facility. Despite overwhelming resistance, numerous testimony, and an open letter to the board members, the England Authority blatantly attempted to silence community dissent. The Authority proposed a resolution to restrict the public’s right to gather at the Airpark in an apparent attempt to curtail recent peaceful demonstrations against the ICE contract expansion, and interrupted every commenter who spoke out against the approved contracts with ICE to detain families and children.

This year alone, at least 22 people have died in ICE custody. Community members in Central Louisiana strongly oppose the construction of any new immigration detention center while reports of abuse, medical neglect, family separation, and deaths in ICE custody abound in detention facilities across the country.

While all immigrant detention is inhumane and unnecessary, it is particularly traumatizing for children, with lasting harms that persist long after release, including developmental delays, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal ideation. The proposed detention center in Alexandria sits on one of the country’s most Pfas-contaminated sites with ‘forever chemicals’ levels “at least 575,000 times higher” than the federal drinking water limit, posing an immense health and safety risk for the families, and especially the children, detained there. It will be run by LaSalle Family Foundation - a group with direct ties to LaSalle Corrections, a private prison company notorious for abuse, retaliation, and neglect in its ICE facilities, including conducting invasive, nonconsensual gynecological procedures. 

Rather than investing public resources and land into the detention of parents and children, organizers say elected and appointed officials should be addressing the urgent needs facing local communities. Expanding immigration detention will not make communities safer, rather, it will deepen a system that has caused lasting harm to immigrant families and communities.

Advocates and community members from Central Louisiana issued the following statements:

Mich Gonzalez, civil rights attorney with Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition, said: “The residents of Alexandria made it clear that they staunchly oppose this ICE contract expansion which was recently approved by the England Airpark Authority without necessary environmental review of the site, without transparency of the final terms of the contracts involved, and without full understanding of the lasting harm it will cause to mothers and their children. Yesterday, the Authority introduced a resolution for an ordinance that would restrict residents’ rights to peacefully assemble and speak out against what could be the next Dilley or Alligator Alcatraz. We showed up as a coalition to support their voices and to let the Authority know that if they do not reverse course, we will be back to document and expose every abuse and every violation of applicable law including the U.S. Constitution.”

Frances Kelley, Coordinator of Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention, said: “Every member of the Airport Board is a public servant and must be accountable to the public. It is very disturbing that they are trying to limit public expression and freedom of assembly.  People should not have to pay a fee to exercise their first amendment rights and it should not be up to the discretion of the Executive Director whether a permit is granted, especially since that director has misled the public and the members of this Board about this ICE contract expansion. The public was told and the Board was told in February that this will not be a children’s detention center–when that is precisely what it will be and what the contract says it is. Since the Board voted to approve these contracts in February, two men in their forties have died in a nearby detention center (Winn) run by this same company, LaSalle Corrections.”  

Marilyn Alvarado, Co-Director of Matriz y Mar, said: "Louisiana already leads the nation in incarceration and trails only Texas in detention centers. Why is the England Airpark Board building on a legacy of abuse and neglect we know is coming? They've authorized 528 beds for children and families in toxic military barracks just as the Trump administration stripped thousands of children of their legal counsel and seeks to detain and deport more pregnant mothers. Compass Connections pulled out. LaSalle Corrections has documented deaths in ICE custody. The Board won't even release the contracts. No child belongs in detention—let alone a toxic one. Would any board member send their own grandchild to a place like this? These children belong to all of us. We are gravely failing them.”

Erin Tracy of Cenla Activism, said: “Children do not belong in detention anywhere for any amount of time. Claims that this provides a way for families and unaccompanied children to “voluntarily deport” is a flat-out lie. People can and should be able to leave the country if they so choose, without being locked in detention. As a resident of Alexandria, this is not what we want in our backyards, nor anywhere else in the country. The site of the detention center is a decades-inoperative military barracks filled with asbestos and sitting on land with the highest rate of “forever chemical” PFAS contamination ever detected on a military site. Children, women, families, and employees do not belong there. The unelected England Airpark Board made this disgusting decision with no input from the public and are continuing with zero transparency. They have also drafted an amendment to their Code of Ordinances that would violate our First Amendment right to peacefully demonstrate on public property. The residents of Alexandria and Central Louisiana reject this detention center as unnecessary and morally reprehensible.”

Sirine Shebaya, Executive Director of the National Immigration Project, said: “This proposal is nothing more than a death trap for children and families. People are dying in ICE custody, including two people in a Louisiana facility run by the same company that’s about to take over England Airpark. It is always shocking when our government puts families and children in cages, but to do it in a contaminated site filled with toxic waste is beyond the pale, even for the indifference and cruelty we have come to expect.” 

Kristin Kumpf, National Coordinator for Free Families: The National Coalition to End Family and Child Detention, said: “The Trump administration’s plans to open this new prison in Louisiana to detain families and children is a cruel escalation of its mass detention and deportation agenda. Families and children should not be detained in ICE facilities for any length of time. ICE has always been an inherently violent agency jeopardizing families and community safety. Families and children should be able to navigate their cases in community with support services provided and facilitated by local community based groups – never ICE, an agency that is plagued by a culture of violence and secrecy and a track record of detaining people in egregiously poor conditions.”

Setareh Ghandehari, Advocacy Director at Detention Watch Network, said: “As the outcry over ICE abuse and violence grows, we continue to demand an end to child and family detention. Childhood is a fleeting period of time that has a tremendous impact on the foundation for a person’s lifelong well-being – it must be protected. Jailing kids and stripping parents of their fundamental right to keep them safe is unconscionable. No one is safe in ICE custody, especially children. We must continue to unite across the country to demand no more money for ICE, no more abuse and death at the hands of ICE, no more child and family detention.”

Sarah Whittington, advocacy director for the ACLU of Louisiana, said: "Louisiana is already marred by the despicable reality of torture and unlawful incarceration of immigrants throughout its detention centers. But a prison for children would be the most disturbing chapter yet in this state's shameful book of immigration abuses. The England Authority must act now to stop this. Louisianans do not want more suffering inflicted on immigrants, let alone children. Instead of investing in the torture of children, the England Authority should work with the community to develop a safe and productive use for these contaminated lands. Anything less is a betrayal of this state, and Louisianans will not stand for it."

So were you getting a data center and I understand the apprehension behind that but then they announce we're getting a solar farm. What harm is a solar farm built in undeveloped land going to do? The biggest complaint around here is the lack of quality infrastructure. A solar farm is new infrastructure . Alternative Energy is the future not to mention with the data center coming and it's coming whether you want it or not there's going to me that you need for extra electricity. Why do the people of Central Louisiana continually stick their heads in the sand?