Mary Staes

Mary Staes is Digital Content Lead for Very Local. She works with our freelancers and crafts content for our social media platforms and website. Before Very Local, she worked with CBS affiliate WWL-TV as a web producer and weekend assignment editor for about 4 years. She has also handled broadcast coverage for 160 Marine Reserve training facilities while she served as an active duty Marine. As a native New Orleanian, she takes being "very local" to heart. She loves being intertwined with the culture and figuring out how there are less than two degrees of separation between us all, whether we're natives or not.

All things merry and bright 🎄

By Mary Staes / December 5, 2019

This week we’re celebrating all the things, and people, that make our city unique, bright and merry.

Weekend Picks: See NOLA’s newest riverboat, Krewe of Jingle, Algiers Bonfire

By Mary Staes / December 4, 2019

Holiday time is in full swing in the city. Not only is everyone feeling the holiday joy, but the Saints are ALREADY divisional champs!

Come take holiday pictures with your pets at Zeus’ Place!

By Mary Staes / December 3, 2019

Let’s face it, our four-legged friends are really family too. So why not let them have the spotlight this holiday season?

Silent night? Not with Big Freedia’s new holiday jam

By Mary Staes / December 3, 2019

Get ready for the holiday shakedown: Big Freedia and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band have a new holiday single for your playlists.

Weekend Picks: The Holidays are Here!

By Mary Staes / November 26, 2019

This weekend we’ll be making leftover Turkey sandwiches and walking off that pecan pie looking at Christmas lights!

Shopping for unique NOLA Christmas gifts? Geaux local!

By Mary Staes / November 26, 2019

We know it’s tempting to go to big box retailers and sites for your gifts, but there are plenty of amazing gift ideas from local shops and entrepreneurs.

For the first time in decades, Chocolate Santa not taking photos for 2019 Christmas

By Mary Staes / November 25, 2019

Fred Parker, known to many across New Orleans as Chocolate Santa or the 7th Ward Santa, has been posing for photos for generations.

How you can hear all the New Orleans artists nominated for the 2020 Grammys

By Mary Staes / November 21, 2019

Here’s a list of our artists nominated and a sampling of their music.

🍗 T-minus one week until Thanksgiving!

By Mary Staes / November 21, 2019

Seven days … but not in that creepy “The Ring” kind of way. It’s just a mere seven days until it’s Stretchy Pants Day, aka Thanksgiving.

Weekend Picks: The holidays are here already!

By Mary Staes / November 21, 2019

That’s right, we’ve got a week left until Thanksgiving and the holidays are here!