Jean Marie Fahr

Jean Marie Fahr, 64, died at West Jefferson Hospital on Monday, August 27, 2018, surrounded by family and friends. At that moment, Mother Earth lost a passionate advocate and ardent defender, New Orleans and southeast Louisiana lost a talented and charismatic community leader, and Jean’s multitude of friends and admirers lost a shining light in their lives.

Born in Teaneck, New Jersey, Jean was a New Orleans-area resident from the age of two and always considered herself a native, capable of out-y’atting the city’s y’attiest y’at. She graduated from Sacred Heart of Jesus High School on Canal Street in 1972 and earned a B.A. degree in English and Journalism Education from the University of New Orleans in 1976. After a year in the newspaper business, Jean embarked on a 27-year career as an executive at the Girl Scout Council of Southeast Louisiana, where she had already logged five years of service as a volunteer leader of Girl Scout Mariner Troop 592.

Retaining her volunteer troop leader position, Jean flourished as a professional Girl Scout, where her love for the natural world, commitment to protecting and preserving undeveloped habitat for present and future generations, innate affability and sense of fun, and skill at training and motivating others made her a natural leader. A tireless worker, Jean quickly established herself as the council’s go-to camping guru, overhauling outdoor training to emphasize progressive skill building, implementing protocols and systems to shore-up camp safety and gain American Camping Association Accreditation for the council’s residential and troop camping programs, and editing Pocket Stew, an indexed collection of southeast Louisiana Girl Scouts’ favorite outdoor recipes so popular that it went into nine printings. Jean mobilized Girl Scouts and community groups to demand that parish leaders address fecal contamination of the Tangipahoa River, which borders Girl Scout Camp Whispering Pines, and collaborated with foresters and local universities to develop a forest management plan for the 650 acre camp, which boasts the largest remaining stand of longleaf pine in the nation. She reintroduced control burns into the privet-infested forest and oversaw the planting of 60,000 longleaf pine saplings by Girl Scouts and their leaders at Camp Whispering Pines and Camp Covington.

As a professional Girl Scout, Jean touched and inspired thousands of girls and women and made and kept hundreds of friends. She knew countless campfire songs which she shared freely, and was always up for a trip to camp for work or recreation. For her many years of voluntary leadership of the Mariner troop, and for the hundreds of hours she donated to train Girl Scout adults or accomplish special projects, Jean was awarded the Thanks Badge, the highest national honor conferred on Girl Scout volunteers, in 2012.

Retaining leadership of Girl Scout Mariner Troop 592, in 2005, Jean was ready for new professional challenges and accepted the Executive Directorship of Parkway Partners, a position she held for eleven years. Parkway Partners was created in 1982 to empower citizens to participate in the creation and maintenance of public green space when drastic cuts were made to New Orleans’ Parks and Parkways budget. On board only a few months before Katrina’s devastation of the city’s urban forest, Jean mobilized hundreds of volunteers in neighborhoods in every part of the city to reintroduce 13,000 trees back into the landscape in the first years following the storm. She also secured funding and recruited volunteers to create the city’s first community orchards and to increase the number of community gardens (which are installed on blighted lots) to 41 from 12, and the number of operating schoolyard gardens in the city from 3 to 11. Jean also initiated Parkway Partners’ 2nd Saturdays Series—monthly plant sales paired with educational presentations delivered by volunteer experts in tree or plant cultivation, landscaping, water management, and other relevant topics.

Reflecting on her life and accomplishments in the months before she died, Jean said she was most proud of the tree planting efforts she led at the Girl Scout camps and through Parkway Partners, and of her work with Mariner Girl Scout troop 592—which she led for almost 45 years, and which is the longest continuously operating Girl Scout troop in southeast Louisiana. She expressed the hope that instead of ceremonies and flowers friends will remember her by planting a tree or making a donation to Parkway Partners (504-620-2224) tree planting programs.

Jean was preceded in death by her parents Edyth Newell Fahr and Robert H Fahr; maternal grandparents Emeline Robert Newell and George E Newell; paternal grandparents Walter G Fahr and Emma Meeks Fahr; and sister Renee Fahr Cady (Francis).

Jean is survived by siblings Walter Fahr (Maggie), Richard Fahr (Sandy), and Mignon Fahr; nephews Sean Cady, David Fahr, Michael Fahr and Damian Fahr and nieces Lesley Cady Prochaska and Amanda Fahr. She is also survived by hundreds of friends and admirers around the United States, because she never met a stranger. She loved deeply and was deeply loved. She will be greatly missed.

No funeral services are planned at this time.

Arrangements entrusted to the Neptune Society of New Orleans.