DEQ secretary to speak at Helping Hearts banquet

Louisiana’s top environmental public official will speak Saturday in Morgan City at a banquet to benefit a non-profit organization that helps assist people with burial expenses of loved ones.

The Tri-City Helping Hearts Foundation will hold a benefit gospel banquet at 4 p.m. Saturday at the St. Mary Senior Citizens Center located at 4014 Chennault St. in Morgan City. The cost to attend is $25 a person at the door.

The foundation is a non-profit organization meant to assist area citizens needing financial assistance with the burial expenses of a loved one. Proceeds from the banquet will help the foundation fulfill this purpose, Foundation President Herman Hartman said in a news release.

Guest speaker will be Chuck Carr Brown, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. Brown became department secretary in 2016 after returning to the department to serve in Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration. Brown was the department’s assistant secretary for environmental services in the mid-2000s.

Before becoming DEQ secretary, he served as president and CEO of Brown and Associates LLC, a firm specializing in the delivery of environmental services, governmental relations and issue management; and vice-president of the Metro Service Group, a New Orleans-based firm that consults in waste collection, vertical and horizontal construction and emergency response, according to his bio.

Brown currently serves as chairman of the Environmental Council of States Waste Committee.

Organizers will also honor a local citizen during Saturday’s banquet.