Diana Esordi

I am the founder and executive director of One Krewe, a nonprofit I started over 5 years ago after my husband and I discovered a huge gap in accessibility during our COVID-19 reverse parade experience. We noticed so many people with mobility devices, older people, and kids with noise-canceling headphones coming through, and then the emails started pouring in from families saying it was the first time they could do something together safely. I realized that in New Orleans, where culture and parading are such a huge part of everything we do, we were leaving behind a massive segment of our community - nationally 1 in 4 people have a disability, but in Louisiana it's 1 in 3. So I created Accessibility Row, a two-block section on parade routes with safe spaces for people with autism, PTSD, those using mobility devices, ASL interpreters, visual describers for people who are blind or have low vision, sensory bags, and portable sensory spaces. My work involves a lot of planning, reaching out to organizations from tourism groups to parading crews, training everyone from police departments to hotels on disability etiquette, fundraising, and meeting with state and local government to show there's a need and how accessibility can be monetized through accessible tourism. Before this, I spent many years in the medical device and pharmaceutical industry working in regulatory, clinical trial, and quality aspects for international companies, dealing with FDA regulations and international marketplaces. But I got to a point where I asked myself if I was really making a difference, and I realized I wasn't. This work with One Krewe truly makes a difference - we're bringing the entire community together and ensuring people aren't being left behind.