Jacob Shepard Dusansky - Founder & President

I spent part of my elementary school years at The American School in London and it was there that I followed Queen Elizabeth’s lead in an interest in honeybee survival and beekeeping. Back in New York, I began my research on beekeeping, but it was not until a move to New Orleans and when I turned fourteen that my parents thought I was ready for beekeeping. Like most things I enjoy there is a team component whether it is playing football, soccer or baseball and I wanted this new endeavor to have that same sense of community. Thus, freshman year at the Isidore Newman School, I petitioned the school to form the first high school beekeeping club in the state and was very encouraged when the membership was maxed out. Since its inception, we have had famous chefs speak to us, business leaders who have helped us learn about the business of honey making and distribution as well as conversations with Detroit Hives, an organization that has mentored me so that the club can emulate urban beekeeping in New Orleans. Throughout my life, I have had the opportunity to volunteer in various places such as: Cape Town South Africa with Grassroots Soccer teaching soccer to children while their parents learn about HIV prevention, SOS Children’s Village in Jaipur India where I helped create a library, and locally at the New Orleans Women and Children’s Shelter through The Balloon Project, who held monthly birthday parties those children living at the shelter. As a member of the ACTIONS committee at my school, a representative for the school at various diversity and inclusion conferences I know that beekeeping was just the conduit I would use to reach out to children in various parish schools. The goal of Bee The Change NOLA is to not only help with the honeybee population but to bring this knowledge into the parish schools. I used the funds from my Bar Mitzvah to add hives. Funds made from our honey produced as well as other community driven benefits will be used to set up beekeeping in schools and in collaboration with Sankofnola, bring pollinator gardens and beehives to the Lower Ninth Ward left desolate after Hurricane Katrina.