Michelle Kendall, MPH
Executive Director
[email protected]
Michelle Kendall became a part of the DDD in 2018 as an intern. Since then, she has served in various roles including Community Programming Manager, Farmers Market Manager, Assistant Director, and was promoted to the role of Executive Director in December 2022.
Michelle is a Southeastern Louisiana University Alumni. She holds a Master of Public Health degree from LSU Health Science Center of New Orleans. Her varied professional and academic background spans over various sectors including public health, economic development, government, non-profits, and more.
Her past work includes policy & legislative coordination for the Louisiana Cancer Control and Prevention Programs, Co-Chair of the Louisiana Healthy Communities Coalition, non-profit event planning & fundraising for the Cancer Association of Greater New Orleans, and research & evaluation for Pennington Biomedical Research Center. She developed a passion for small businesses at her very first job as cashier & supervisor at Acquistapace's Covington Supermarket in Downtown Covington, LA.
Originally from Folsom, LA, she is has called Hammond her home since 2014. She lives in the Iowa Addition, a historic Hammond neighborhood just blocks from Downtown, and is currently renovating a home built in 1903. In her free time, she enjoys strolling around Downtown with her family (fiancée Jonathan, son Ellis, and dogs Pinto and Adzuki).
Dara Calmes
Assistant Director
Dara Calmes began her journey with the DDD in May 2024 as their Assistant Director. She has a soft-spot for community, found family, and compassionately building neighborhood kinship.
Dara is a Southeastern Louisiana University Alumni who graduated in Spring 2022. She has a Bachelor's of Art in Art with a double concentration in Photography and Art History. Both of her concentrations focused on the relationship between intergenerational trauma, archival images and photography within the family.
Multi-talented and a jack-of-all-trades, Dara has several years of management and sales experience, has hosted radio shows at KSLU and helped SLU professors with research. Her most notable career success is her work done for Tangipahoa Parish Library System at their Hammond Branch Library where she was the Adult Programming Specialist for two years. She created many thriving programs such as Metal at the Library, Paint the Story, & Forever Fall Fest. In this role, she also did outreach programs that directly benefited the Council on Aging of Hammond and the SLU Lab School.
A resident of Hammond for over a decade, Dara has been blessed to fall in love in this city to her partner Ryan Church and treat their three cats like children (Finn, Maybell, and Bruce). Most of her favorite memories with her favorite people are here.
Ashley Tarleton, MA
Communications Coordinator
Ashley Tarleton began working with the DDD in 2022 as a graduate research assistant for the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies at Southeastern Louisiana University. She worked with the DDD to help research and write the Railroad Park History Exhibit panels. In May 2024, she was brought on as the DDD's Communications Coordinator.
Ashley graduated with her Master of Arts in History in May 2024. Although originally from Baton Rouge, LA, she has been a Hammond resident since 2012 when she started her undergraduate career at Southeastern. Receiving her Bachelors of Art in History from Southeastern in 2019. Her love for local history largely began with her work on the Railroad Park History Panels and continued with her work on her Masters Thesis, "An Ambiguous Estate in Life: Free People of Color in Louisiana's Rural Florida Parishes."
Throughout her undergraduate and graduate careers, she worked as a server and bartender in restaurants in downtown Hammond and Ponchatoula. Ashley has always been happy and proud to be a part of the downtown Hammond community. She is very excited having the opportunity to become more involved with the downtown community and to preserve all aspects Hammond's important history through her position with the DDD.
Outside of work, Ashley enjoys reading, spending time outside, working with her plants, working on her artwork, and spending time with her boyfriend, friends, family and kitty cat (Champ).
Savannah Phillips
Hammond Farmers & Artisans Market Manager
Savannah Phillips started with the DDD as a bright-eyed summer intern in 2023. When the opportunity arose, she was excited to be hired on part-time as the Hammond Farmers and Artisans Market Manager in August 2023.
Born and raised in Ponchatoula, LA, Savannah has her familial roots in strawberry farming, and loves working with the earth and her hands to watch things grow. Presently, she is pursuing a dual major in Communications and Visual Arts, with a concentration in ceramics and photography, and a French minor at Southeastern Louisiana University.
In Savannah's experience, life is improved by the creation of the art that imitates it. In her work, she strives to use her skills to bring light to the relationship between humans and the land that supports them, promoting local farm to table in a way that has a positive effect on economy and ecosystem alike.
In her little free time, Savannah enjoys working in her garden, spending time with her boyfriend, reading, and roller-skating downtown Hammond with her dogs (Kitsuné, Lady Maeve, and Huckleberry Finn)!
