NEW ORLEANS (press release) – Jazz Bird NOLA, a 501(c)3 nonprofit advancing healthy aging, longevity and community well-being, has launched a citywide storytelling initiative inviting residents, recent transplants and former New Orleanians to share the personal stories behind their move to — or their dream of returning to — the Crescent City.
The **Share Your Story** survey asks one question: Why did you move to New Orleans?
It takes just a couple of minutes to complete.
At a moment when national coverage of New Orleans has focused heavily on the city’s challenges — subsidence, insurance, population loss — Jazz Bird NOLA is working to change the conversation by collecting the positive, first-person case for the city directly from the people choosing to call it home.
“New Orleans has a way of choosing the people who belong here,” said Dr. Felicia Stoler, founder of Jazz Bird NOLA. “The stories behind those moves — the meals, the music, the moments, the people — tell us something important about this city and the lives being built here. We want to hear them. And just as importantly, we want to hear from the people whose families left after Katrina and who are now thinking about coming home. *If you love it, live it.* That’s for them too.”
The initiative is part of a broader effort to reframe New Orleans as a healthy place to live — not just a place to visit. While New Orleans & Co. and others have spent decades attracting visitors, Jazz Bird NOLA’s mission focuses on the next step: turning love for the city into the decision to live here, and supporting the well-being of residents once they do.
There is particular focus on the 50+ community, a demographic increasingly choosing New Orleans as home — and one that includes many native New Orleanians and their families who left in the years after Hurricane Katrina. For that community, *If you love it, live it* is more than a tagline. It’s an invitation.
Responses to the Share Your Story survey will inform Jazz Bird® NOLA’s community programming, advocacy, and partnership work across the city.
**Take the survey:**Â https://jazzbirdnola.com/jazzbird-survey.html
**Follow Jazz Bird® NOLA:**Instagram @jazzbird_nola • Facebook: Jazz Bird NOLA
