I stopped by the shelter last night to see if they needed any help, and to bring a couple of bushels of apples for one of the peeps who was heading to Gulfport today. Turns out that the 100 or so people of the next wave that were to come got diverted: FEMA decided to put them up in hotels instead. Huh? I’m thinkin’ somebody with a hotel knows somebody at FEMA, but I certainly can’t prove anything. The upshot is, the shelter is winding down; when the last few families get placed in their apartments or houses (which are being prepared), they’re done.
The good news is, they have been accredited (or whatever the equivalent is) by the Red Cross as a disaster shelter. That does mean a bit more work: they have to have everything in a state where they can open up, literally within hours. But they’re willing, and that’s the important part. Saturday is the last volunteer day; they're going to sort the mountain of clothes & other donations, put them on pallets, and ship them to a church somewhere down in hurricane country. If they don’t find a place in Louisiana, I’m sure there’s a couple of places in Texas that are going to need some help real soon.
As I was talking to the guy, a little kid (age about 4 or 5) came by with a piece of cake. Seeing that this was getting way on beyond supper time, I was thinking, “this kid’s gonna be wired big-time.” Sure enough, he came over and started punching my gut and talking to me: “Did that hurt?” “Your belly’s hard.” “Are you gonna have a baby?” Heh. Some guys work out all the time and have only a six-pack to show for it. I have a whole keg!
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
3 comments:
Comments are welcome, and they don't have to be complimentary. I delete spam on sight, but that's pretty much it for moderation. Long off-topic rants or unconstructive flamage are also candidates for deletion but I haven’t seen any of that so far.
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Hey Sally... I was going to get you the addy, but then when they told me they were winding things up I figured there wasn't much need.
ReplyDeleteBut you make a good point -- they're going to need some kind of space on-site to store the gear. I'll get the info, if not tomorrow then definitely this weekend.
{{{sallycat}}}
Hello. ATG here. Thanks for your comments. Can I ask you something? Are you a teacher or erm..
ReplyDeleteHi ATG, glad you stopped by. No, I'm not a teacher, I'm a technical writer — if you use a cable modem to get online, I might have been the person who wrote the manual that came on the CD. There's a lot of other stuff I write that you don't see, for the techie peeps at the cable company, so they can keep everything running.
ReplyDeleteJust curious, why do you ask?