Hi Luce!
Thanks for keeping us updated on your local efforts to help Katrina's victims. I thought you might be interested to know what my state (MD) is doing. I guess by now many evacuees are fanning out across the country and finding homes with friends, relatives, and even generous strangers.
Several thousand have already settled here, with many more expected. We had originally set up a shelter but haven't had to use it. Homes have been found so far for everyone needing them. Last week the school systems registered over 300 evacuated kids. I realize that this is a small number compared to the over 4000 kids that Houston registered in the same time period, but I think it is remarkable considering that we are a small state more than 1000 miles north of the gulf coast!
MD has a huge parochial (Catholic) school system, which has offered to take any evacuees' kids free of tuition for the entire school year. Also, uniforms and books are without charge to these families. Many parents have taken advantage of this offer and are thrilled and grateful, as you can imagine. Even our neighborhood public middle school (where my son went) has registered 2 transplanted kiddies......with more coming.
MD colleges like Johns Hopkins, Loyola, etc. offered to immediately enroll any affected college kids from the gulf coast - even without records. More than 70 have accepted the offer and already enrolled here.
It is so heartwarming to see how Americans pull together when the chips are down!
Love,
Polly
Luce, re Katrina evacuees
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Luce, re Katrina evacuees
Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.
I'll bet that's happening countrywide. Around here, the churches, especially, have raised a lot of money, and arranged for homes for many families. So far, it appears that in many areas, the supply of homes is exceeding the demand.
Love,
Wayne
Love,
Wayne
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
We even have some people here in Oregon!! Like in MD, we never needed the shelters because folks found homes with other families. School is the same way. Welcome, welcome, welcome. It looks like if the gov't. stayed out of things we could do just fine. I think the Red Cross has done a fabulous job.
Good for America!!
Love, Sally
Good for America!!
Love, Sally
Mitakuye oyasin
(Lakota for "We are all related")
(Lakota for "We are all related")
Polly,
I actually had heard something about some of the evacuees going to Maryland, and had wondered if perhaps you weren't seeing some of them as patients. They all were triaged before entering the Dome or the Convention Center shelter downtown, and had complete medical care as long as they were located there. I do hope that they won't drop the ball on follow-up after leaving the shelters since they won't know the medical facilities in a new area.
There was a very sophistocated computer set-up at the big shelters which matched families to host families, jobs, etc. in the areas to which they might wish to live, so that may account for the ability to get families directly into homes. This is good because that way, they won't have to move yet another time, once they arrive.
Also, I know that the Jesuit school here is accepting students from a Jesuit school in N.O., and that there are several schools and universities partnering with similar schools.
What I think is happening is that if a student is from another state, then similar universities in their home states or nearby are admitting them there as they tend to want to be close to home when they leave La, if not actually live at home.
It would be nice if all could attend private schools to get away from the gang rivalries, etc. We've already had one incident of a little competition between rough kids from here and rough kids from there. The district has told their students that absolutely no mistreatment of La. students would be tolerated. I'm sure that this incident has been the exception, but even the local media has gone back to just reporting the negative.
It was neat the first day the first children arrived on the school buses. All the teachers, including some of their N.O. public school teachers, and principle, and maybe even the district sup. where all lined up along the sidewalk high-fiving the little kids and greeting them with big smiles and welcomes.
So much was learned here, that other cities are using it as a model. Lots of it wasn't in our extensive emergency response plan that, as the County Judge stated, we were making it up as we went along, but hey, sometimes that's the best way. I think it's a mistake to get too locked into a plan as every emergency is different.
Sally, the real story that the national media didn't pick up on was the immediate response of the people to a developing human crisis, and most of the Red Cross efforts were carried out by the churches.
By the time the first 100 buses started to roll into the Dome parking lot, there were already private citizens there to greet them with all kinds of clean clothes, and other personal items that they would need, but I think it was the loving way they did it that touched them so.
Keep the schools and lodging comin' in folks as it's awfully crowded down here right now!
I really think that it's going to take a while for just the decisions to be made about how to redo, if not rebuild N.O. La. is the biggest pork state in the U.S.A., so I certainly hope the Feds will keep a close eye to make certain
that federal dollars and other monies are not squandered as they've been doing all these years instead of spending it on the levee system. It's not from lack of funding, I assure you, it's just a case of "where did the money go?"
Yours, Luce
I actually had heard something about some of the evacuees going to Maryland, and had wondered if perhaps you weren't seeing some of them as patients. They all were triaged before entering the Dome or the Convention Center shelter downtown, and had complete medical care as long as they were located there. I do hope that they won't drop the ball on follow-up after leaving the shelters since they won't know the medical facilities in a new area.
There was a very sophistocated computer set-up at the big shelters which matched families to host families, jobs, etc. in the areas to which they might wish to live, so that may account for the ability to get families directly into homes. This is good because that way, they won't have to move yet another time, once they arrive.
Also, I know that the Jesuit school here is accepting students from a Jesuit school in N.O., and that there are several schools and universities partnering with similar schools.
What I think is happening is that if a student is from another state, then similar universities in their home states or nearby are admitting them there as they tend to want to be close to home when they leave La, if not actually live at home.
It would be nice if all could attend private schools to get away from the gang rivalries, etc. We've already had one incident of a little competition between rough kids from here and rough kids from there. The district has told their students that absolutely no mistreatment of La. students would be tolerated. I'm sure that this incident has been the exception, but even the local media has gone back to just reporting the negative.
It was neat the first day the first children arrived on the school buses. All the teachers, including some of their N.O. public school teachers, and principle, and maybe even the district sup. where all lined up along the sidewalk high-fiving the little kids and greeting them with big smiles and welcomes.
So much was learned here, that other cities are using it as a model. Lots of it wasn't in our extensive emergency response plan that, as the County Judge stated, we were making it up as we went along, but hey, sometimes that's the best way. I think it's a mistake to get too locked into a plan as every emergency is different.
Sally, the real story that the national media didn't pick up on was the immediate response of the people to a developing human crisis, and most of the Red Cross efforts were carried out by the churches.
By the time the first 100 buses started to roll into the Dome parking lot, there were already private citizens there to greet them with all kinds of clean clothes, and other personal items that they would need, but I think it was the loving way they did it that touched them so.
Keep the schools and lodging comin' in folks as it's awfully crowded down here right now!
I really think that it's going to take a while for just the decisions to be made about how to redo, if not rebuild N.O. La. is the biggest pork state in the U.S.A., so I certainly hope the Feds will keep a close eye to make certain
that federal dollars and other monies are not squandered as they've been doing all these years instead of spending it on the levee system. It's not from lack of funding, I assure you, it's just a case of "where did the money go?"
Yours, Luce
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