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.

‘Lemme find out you ain’t registered to vote’: 5th Ward Weebie drops that b.e.a.t. for the polls

By Mary Staes / November 2, 2018

5th Ward Weebie took his hit “Lemme FInd Out” to another level Thursday, dropping a remix with the message of getting to the polls behind it.

Between the Highrise and the Twinspan; a day in New Orleans East

By Mary Staes / November 2, 2018

New Orleans East gets a bad rap. But between the Highrise and the Twinspan, there’s a lot of hidden gems.

All Saints Day: How I Remember My Grandmother Through Tears & Tradition

By Mary Staes / November 1, 2018

It’s a time for family to get together, even if only for a few minutes to pay respects to loved ones who have died.

The One Dish I Love In NOLA: Chef Toya Boudy Craves Neyow’s Chargrilled Oysters

By Mary Staes / October 31, 2018

Chef Toya Boudy says that THESE chargrilled oysters are some of the best in the city.

Fest celebrates launch of locally developed food truck app

By Mary Staes / October 31, 2018

A NOLA couple is launching an app that helps you skip the food truck line, and no one will get mad.

A 500-foot-long po-boy?! That’s how New Orleans celebrates National Sandwich Day

By Mary Staes / October 30, 2018

It’ll top last year’s sandwich which measured up at 352 feet and 11 inches.

Please, stop making gumbo like this. It’s awful.

By Mary Staes / October 30, 2018

Just say soup, chowder or etouffee next time. But baby, that’s not a gumbo.

St.Louis Cemetery No. 2

Celebrating All Saints Day in the city

By Mary Staes / October 30, 2018

Instead of the usually somber, spooky look, the cemeteries are full of life on All Saints Day.

$15 million in checks going out to Louisiana residents before Christmas

By Mary Staes / October 30, 2018

The Louisiana Treasury Department is making it rain to the tune of $15 million for at least 90,000 who have unclaimed money, according to a report from WWL-TV.

Cocktails of the week: Mer-tinis and Pirate Punch at Audubon’s Mermaid Saloon

By Mary Staes / October 30, 2018

Audubon Aquarium is offering grown-ups the chance to see the famous Weeki Wachee Mermaids on the night of Nov. 8 in a so-fin-sticated and kid-free experience at the “Mermaid Saloon.”