The Silent "I"

Bake Sale Secrets Revealed!

Back in August, which seems like a lifetime ago (or at the very least a Lifetime Movie ago), Jill called me and said, "I think we should do a bake sale for Hurricane Katrina."  In January, our group had a bake sale for Tsunami Relief and raised over $9,000.  This was quite a feat for us, and we even got coverage on the local news because of it.  My first reaction to Jill's call was "what hurricane?" because we were in the throes of a Category 5 Kindergartner "I HATE SCHOOL" meltdown when she called.  I quickly turned on the news and saw that New Orleans was flooded and that people were holed up in the New Orleans Superdome.  About the same time, I got about 5 different e-mails from various people in our group asking, imploring that we do something for the hurricane.  Several suggested a bake sale.

Jill told me, "You don't have to do it yourself...let's recruit someone."  After several rounds of e-mails begging and pleading for a volunteer, the fabulous Lauren stepped up to organize it and we were off!   I sent her my plan from the first bake sale, with a few refinements. She picked up and ran with it, and recruited Amy and Hilary to help out as well.  The net result was over 100 bakers, 4 other mothers clubs contributing baked goods and funds, and $22,000 raised for the American Red Cross.  So, what's our secret?  Here are our tips and tricks for having a successful bake sale:

• Location, Location, Location: Choose a location that normally has a lot of foot traffic, that doesn't have a bakery to compete with, and doesn't have a policy against solicitation.  We held ours at Trader Joe's in Menlo Park, which has a wonderful, congenial staff that was very supportive of our efforts.  Find out from your town if you need a permit to sell baked goods in public before you begin.  Some schools no longer allow bake sales due to regulations on nutrition content in foods, so be careful of those rules as well.
• Use Your E-mail Lists:  Not everyone likes to bake, but everyone has an e-mail list of friends that they routinely send spam to, so ask people to help out by baking or just spreading the word through to their friends, family, and neighbors.  We had a number of people hold baking parties, enlist their girl scout troops, and have their moms and their friends bake for us. 
• Cakes, Pies, and Breads Sell Best:  Encourage people to bring big ticket items rather than individually wrapped cookies or brownies.  These can bring in more money, and are less labor intensive than having to wrap 3 dozen brownies individually.  You can also have cookies in groups of 3-6 or a plate of brownies for sale.  Have a few individually wrapped muffins for people who want to "eat on the spot", but try to focus on the big items.  We sold jars of make-your-own cookie mix (just add eggs and milk!) that someone donated for $10-$20 each.  The first things to go were sweet breads, cakes and pies.  A bake sale organizer from Move On's Bake Back America campaign told me that they had hundreds of chocolate chip cookies leftover; at the Tsunami Bake Sale, we had dozens of muffins leftover.  At the Katrina bake sale, we followed this rule and sold out of everything early.
• Decorate the Packaging:  A little TLC goes a long way in selling baked goods...Wrap the items, and use ribbons, stickers, bows, etc.  One mom put toy cars and dinosaurs on top of cupcakes--those were sold before they hit the table.  Be sure to ask people to label all the items, since it might be hard to tell zucchini bread from banana bread without a label.  If the items are "sugar-free", "wheat-free" or "come from a nut-free home," be sure to say that.  It means something to people struggling with diabetes, allergies, or food sensitivities to know what is in something. 
• Don't Limit Yourself to Baked Goods:  At the Tsunami Bake Sale, we sold certificates for full dinners prepared and delivered by our members to the purchaser's home at a later date.  We priced these at $50 for a dinner for 4-6 people, up to $200 for a gourmet dinner prepared by a professional chef.  Many were sold for more than the asking price, and we could have sold many more if we'd had them.  We raised nearly $3,000 on these dinners alone.
• Get Local Businesses to Participate:  We had donations of coffee from Starbucks and Peet's, bagels from Izzy's Brooklyn Bagels, donuts from the San Carlos Donut Shop, and pastries from Esther's German Bakery.  The donations were used to feed hungry volunteers and were also sold.  Be sure to acknowledge your generous sponsors with signs on the table and in your newsletter or e-mails about the bake sale.
• Make it Festive:  Decorate the table with colored table cloths, balloons, and eye-catching signage.  For the Katrina Relief Red Cross Bake Sale, we had a red and white theme and had red ribbon on hand to spruce up packaging.  All the volunteers wore red aprons (borrowed from the Junior League), our club logo hats, and Mardi Gras beads.  For the Tsunami Bake Sale, we used UNICEF's orange and blue color scheme and wore club logo t-shirts.
• Don't Price Items:  Tell buyers, "This is a benefit for X...give what you can."  We had a "suggested price list," but found that people will give $20 for some cookies and not ask for change, but if you put a price sticker that says $1 on it, they want change.  You might have a few who will take a lot and pay a little, but they will be far outnumbered by people who give more than what the pie is worth.
• Do a PR Campaign:  It may sound ridiculous to put out a press release for something as mundane as a bake sale, but do it anyway.  You might get a small mention in the local paper's "community bulletin board" section, or you might get a feature write up--you won't know unless you try.  We had TV news cameras come to Jill's house the day before our bake sale to cover moms and babies dropping off goodies for the sale.  Of course, we had to get the word out to people to show up so we had a "buzz" of activities going at the time, but it brought attention to what we were doing.  Be sure to include descriptors like, "The sale will include tempting homemade treats like New Orleans Pralines and Granny's Super Secret Recipe Double Dutch Apple Pie."  Be sure to e-mail your friends to come out to the sale, put up flyers and signs before the event, and tell everyone you know to come.  We made the TV news and the local newspaper with our efforts for Katrina Relief.
• Ask for Matching Funds: If there are people or companies in your community who have can afford it, ask them if they will "match" the funds you raise.  We had one generous donor offer to match up to $5,000.  As it happened, the family was planning to give this amount to the Red Cross anyway, but they allowed us to use that as part of our "start your ovens" campaign to get people to participate.  After finding out what we made, we also had contributions of $1,000 and $2,000, so be sure to publicize your total and let people know that "We raised x, but are a little shy of our goal..." You never know if someone might be inspired to help out.
• Have a Friendly, Upbeat Sales Team:  Your volunteers at the sale are the "face" of your organization and will be meeting the public, who may or may not be receptive to what you are doing.   They should be able to answer questions about where the money is going, who your club is, and where the sugar-free, nut-free cookies are.  It didn't hurt to have some adorable kids around collecting change and helping.
• Have a Leftover Plan:  In the event that you don't sell everything, find a local food pantry that you can donate your wrapped goodies to, or have a plan to use the leftovers in a positive way.  We donated leftover muffins to Ronald McDonald House at Stanford.
• Have Fun:  The images of the devastation wrought by the South Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina were sobering and left people feeling helpless.  The bake sales turned into wonderful community-building events for us and helped us all to feel that we were doing our part in a small way.  We all know that $22,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed, but every cookie baked and every apple pie was made with love and caring for people we didn't know.  One mom told me, "Our family is on a very tight budget, so I didn't have a lot of money to send to the relief efforts.  I appreciated that I could make brownies with my kids and feel that we contributed a little something."

These ideas are obviously not original, but are a compilation of ideas and tips sent to me by our thoughtful and creative PAMP members and by the Move On Bake Sale organizers from Los Altos.  The last bake sale I organized before the tsunami was when I was Freshman Class President in High School back in during the Carter Administration, so my own skills were a little rusty, but as usual, our PAMP moms and dads came through with great ideas and hundreds, if not thousands of yummy treats.  Happy Baking and Good Luck!

Lasting Bonds

About a week after I returned home from Louisiana, I sent a note to Ginny thanking her for showing us around and for her help.  Jill and I got this note from her in reply:

I'm the one who wants to thank you!  I'm sorry that I didn't get to see you both to tell you goodbye and to thank you in person...  It was such an incredible boost to meet you both; I'm so humbled and edified by what you've done to summon, organize, and deliver assistance on such a massive scale.  To say that your generosity is overwhelming is an inadequate understatement; it's kind of like trying to find words to thank the Coast Guard when they've rescued you from your raft that drifted out too far in the Gulf; you can't believe that you're in this predicament, you're not thinking very clearly, you're very glad that the sharks didn't get you, and, though you don't know them, you feel this deep and lasting bond with these strangers who, without knowing the first thing about you, sprang into action, putting aside their own well-being, and brought you back to shore and tended your wounds. 

I know that I'm not articulating this well, but it's important to me that you, Jill, and you, Glennia, and all the PAMP members and donors know what it means to receive such an outpouring of love from people you've never met.  Far too often the families with whom we work have given up, feeling that poverty is simply their lot in life and that things will never change.  And while you witnessed a few who attempted to "get while the getting was good" and abuse the generosity offered them, the vast majority have never known what it is to be treated with compassion and concern.  I believe with everything that is in me that your clear and resounding demonstration of caring about the people of Louisiana, that they are in fact, people worthy of respect and dignity, is life-altering.  I am, (and we are) forever in your debt.  And I am profoundly grateful that I had the chance to meet and come to know such incredibly amazing women.  (If you won't consider FEMA, how about
housing czar for New Orleans?)

With deep gratitude,

Ginny

One thing that I've learned in 25 years of volunteering is never to expect gratitude; to give for the sake of giving and with an open mind and open heart.  When someone says "thank you" in such a heartfelt way, it is really more than is expected, but is certainly appreciated.

I have had time to think and process what all of this means to me.  In going to Louisiana, I felt that my role was more witness than participant; that I was there to see, to absorb, to know what was happening so that I could relate it to others.   This project was primarily Jill's doing, with the help of several hundred PAMP Members, Members of the San Carlos/Belmont Mothers' Club, and the wonderful people at the Relocation Project.   I came back inspired to do more, to become a participant.  Whatever time and money I spent on this project are small in comparison to what I gained from the experience of going there and meeting these people, hearing their stories, and bearing witness to their courage. 

Winston Churchill said, "We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give."  I think that is true on so many levels, not just financially.  We get money from jobs to pay the bills, to have and maintain a certain standard of living, and it never seems like enough.  When we give of ourselves, our time, our energy and our money, what we receive back is so much more meaningful and important than what we've given.  That's when we know that what we have really is more than enough.  The real stories of our lives are written by the love and compassion we give to our friends, family, neighbors, community, and maybe even to strangers who live half a continent away.

Katrina and Her Sister Rita

On Wednesday morning, we meet our PTA hosts at Starbucks and they take us on a driving tour of the hardest hit areas of Slidell.  We finally get to meet Cheryl, the Louisiana State PTA President.  For a long time, she was the only contact we had with Louisiana, and we were updated by our State PTA Representative about Cheryl's whereabouts, the condition of her house, and her family.  She is a warm and funny person, and she tells us, "For the record, I was not, nor have ever been, living in a trailer."  One of the early stories we heard about her was that she was holed up in a trailer outside her home.  She tells us that she can live in the house, but that a tree fell in the pool and has morphed into The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  She can't complain, she says.  She is much more worried about her local PTA Presidents, some of whom have been unreachable since the storm.  Cheryl hasn't been in Slidell since the storm, and so she hasn't seen the neighborhoods either.

Cathy tells us that there are some schools that are not on our "sister school" list that she thinks we should see.  The hardest hit school is Walter Abney Elementary, which was directly in the flood zone. 100% of the students at that school had homes that were flooded, and many have not returned to school yet.  Abney has reopened one wing.  She also mentions Salmen High School and St. Tammany Junior High, which are closed due to storm damage.  The children from St. Tammany are now "platooning" at Slidell Junior High, meaning going to school in shifts.  One group goes early in the morning until 1:00 pm; the other school goes from 1 to 7 pm.

We drive down a main street in Slidell toward Abney Elementary School with Michelle, Cathy, and Cheryl and it looks like a war zone.  Shells of buildings that used to be businesses stand along the street, with piles of debris littering the parking lots.  I notice that construction is going on in only one of them.  A handful of men are welding metal frames together inside a concrete shell.  The rest of the buildings are empty.  The Blockbuster has piles of gooey tapes and ruined DVD cases outside.  A clothing store has a mound of boxes and clothes in front of it.  Everywhere, we see the aftermath of a violent storm that showed no mercy.

A long line of cars is waiting to make a right turn into what looks like a big red and white circus tent in a parking lot.  "Red Cross station," Michelle says.  "They set up these tents and a drive-thrus and people wait hours and hours to fill out forms."  They are concerned about elderly people.  "How can they wait in a five hour line outside in 90 degree heat?"  she wonders.  No one know what, if anything, is being done to help the elderly or disabled to make sure that they are getting the same benefits as everyone else.

As we approach the school, we enter a residential neighborhood.  This is one of the hardest hit areas of Slidell, where flood waters rose up to 11 feet in some areas.  Street after street, neighborhood after neighborhood has piles of debris on the lawn.  These are middle class houses, mostly brick and much like the house I grew up in--modest, but comfortable ranch-style homes on a small lot, with a nice yard.  Several of the houses have swing sets and playhouses toppled over in the back.   Outside some of the homes, there are RVs and camping trailers parked in the driveway.  "That's where the family lives now," says Cathy, "inside the trailer." 

Every house has a pile of debris on the front yard and a blue tarp on the roof.  The mounds by the street contain fixtures, sheet rock, molding couches, artwork in broken frames, rotting wooden dining room tables.  These are the things it takes a lifetime to collect.  I'm sure that each piece of furniture was lovingly chosen by the homeowner, or perhaps something handed down.  All of these objects are imbued with memories for the people who lived in these homes. Now, it's all part of the trash.   

Some of the tree debris has crowded onto the street, so only one car can pass at a time.  Luckily, there aren't any more cars on the road.  We slow down or get out occasionally to take pictures, but it feels uncomfortable to do so. I feel the a police photographer taking pictures at a crime scene.  I try to remain detached and just document what I'm seeing, but it seems disrespectful somehow, as though I'm photographing someones broken dream.

We arrive at Walter Abney Elementary, one of the schools that is not on our sister school list, but that the PTA officials are adamant that we see.  In the front yard are signs boasting "Winner-- Cleanest School Award 2005."  This school is open, but is one of the schools in the middle of the flood zone.  100% of the children who go to this school have been affected by the storm, and most are homeless now.  The children from the shelter we visited yesterday go to this school also, even though they come from all over.

We meet with Lynn, a Resource Teacher, who shows us around.  Lynn tells us that the school flooded and one wing remains closed.  She shows us the water mark on one of the doors to a classroom, which is above knee-level.  The kindergarten and first grade rooms were hardest hit, because everything in those rooms is build low to the ground.  The teachers in those rooms lost years and years worth of classroom equipment--small toys and manipulatives, bulletin board sets, rugs, and other things that made their classrooms unique and inviting to children.  We walk down a hallway, which is brightly painted with Sesame Street characters toward the kindergarten room.

We walk in, and there are about 40 kindergarten students in one large room with two teachers and two teacher's aides.  One boy is having a disagreement with the teacher.  She calls him by both his first and last name, as though it is one big word, like "JohnDoe".  She says calmly, "Now, JohnDoe, I know you're upset, but you need to join the others for story time." 

He refuses and starts to cry.  "I'm going home!" he exclaims.  He takes two big stomping steps toward the door, and freezes.  His face is crestfallen and he puts his head in his hands and sobs.  I have no idea what crossed his mind at that moment--that he was going to be in trouble and he better obey the teacher, or if suddenly realized that he didn't have a home to go back to.

We retreat to the hallway with one of the teachers, who agrees to let Jill videotape her.  She seems a little apprehensive at first, but starts telling us about the things that she lost.  She was a Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year and received a grant from Wal-Mart.  She spent the money on special rugs for the classroom, but those had to be thrown out.  She said, "I'm a Raggedy Ann nut, and I've collected things with Raggedy Ann and Andy for years.  It may sound silly, but all those years of collecting things for my room to make it special are gone, just gone."  Part of her beloved Raggedy Ann collection was a clock hand-carved by a parent who died of cancer last year.  "That clock," she says with tears in her eyes, "Can never be replaced."

While she is talking, a first grade teacher across the hall comes out and gives me a collection of "Katrina stories" written and illustrated by her class.  On the first day back at school, she asked each child to write what happened to them during the storm and draw a picture.  The stories were about evacuating and staying in motel rooms in Florida and Texas and coming home to find their toys were all gone, or their house split in two by a tree. 

One of them says,

"I went to Florida.  I stayed at a hotel.  I took my dog for a walk and I looked for hermit crabs.  I found some.  Right now we live in a travel trailer in front of our house.  We got 5 feet of water in our house." 

At the bottom is a drawing of a trailer, this child's home.

Another one says,

"Me and my mom went to Jackson first.  Then we went to Texas to get away from Katrina's sister Rita.  We stayed at my aunt's house.  I liked playing with my toys.  I lost my little turtle from Rita's sister Katrina.  There was mud in my bathtub and on the toilet!  We have to live upstairs where it is clean."

There is a tiny drawing of a turtle, the thing this boy loved and lost, at the bottom of the page.

I read this one and started to cry,

"During the hurricane we went to a jail and stayed with all the soldiers.  One room was 3500 ft long!  We was running around playing.  I played with my legos.  We went to a hotel, then we went home and had a giant mess.  I didn't like the hurricane because it destroyed my mama's old house.  I did like the 3500 ft long room we stayed in at the jail."

I think at that point, seeing the kids and reading these stories, really made it all hit home for me.  My own son is five and in kindergarten.  He's a defiant, willful boy like JohnDoe.  He would have fun in a hotel or even a "jail", and be upset losing a turtle or toys.  These stories must only scratch the surface of what these children are feeling and thinking.  I can't imagine what this must be like for their parents, to have to live in half a house or a trailer in the driveway--and to be considered among the lucky to have that.

After meeting these two teachers, we walk around a bit more and run into a young woman carrying an armload of metal and a broom.  She is part of a group of high school students from Colorado who have taken their fall break week to come to Slidell to help rebuild Abney Elementary's playground.  Since there were no hotel rooms and all of the student homes had been flooded, these kids had to sleep in tents in the gymnasium--there is no place else for them to go.   The Colorado kids have painted, put up shelves and done whatever was needed.  The teachers clearly admire and appreciate what these kids were doing.  Somewhere in Colorado, there is a group of parents who should be very, very proud.

Much of the initial clean-up work was done by the National Guard, Coast Guard, and Army.  The school has posted signs all over the school thanking them for their efforts.  The hand-painted signs say, "Thanks for Cleaning Our Yard, National Guard!" 

In the corridor, there are boxes of clothes and shoes are lined up against the wall. We meet the Principal and she tells us that the night before had been Open School Night, and "It was a bit different from our normal Open School Night."  They had received some donations from Minnesota and put them out for the parents to take what they needed as far as clothes or shoes.  The donations came from Slidell's "Sister City" in Minnesota.  They were grateful to have something to give the parents. 

We asked what they needed most right now, and they told us the greatest needs remaining are for basics like socks, underwear, and school uniforms--khaki pants (Lands End or Gap type pants) and plain colored dark green polo shirt.  They also need classroom aids for teachers--small manipulatives, blocks, building materials, and art supplies.  About half of the children we saw at this school did not have uniforms.  We now have many of these items on our Amazon Wish List for St. Tammany Schools.

After this, we drove around a bit more so we could see three schools that were closed due to the storm.   We passed through neighborhoods where we see several houses that had been split in two by giant trees falling on them.  It is odd that my eyes register that there is a house with a tree in the middle of it, but it takes a second or two for my brain to catch up with what I am actually seeing.  These once-beautiful homes, some recently built, are now uninhabitable.  One of them has a statue of an Easter Island Moai wearing Mardi Gras beads in the front yard.  Like the real statues of Easter Island, he stands like a sentinel, a silent witness to destruction.

We drive down through the Olde Towne part of Slidell, by the main fire station and the City Hall.  Outside the Baptist church, the pews are lined up in a neat row.  Nearby is Michelle's shop.  Michelle was one week away from opening a bead and make-it-yourself jewelry shop when the storm hit.  It is a pretty blue building with white trim, and on the outside it looks to be in good shape.  It was flooded during the storm and she lost all of her inventory.  A pile of computer equipment, shelving, and office furniture sits outside.  We peer in the windows and can see the mold creeping up the walls, but the shop is empty.  Michelle has to fight back angry tears.  This shop was something she had dreamed about and worked hard for a long time to open.  "Gone," she says, "It's all gone."

Our last stop is at Slidell Junior High School, where the school district has set up a donation distribution center.  Groups from all over the country have sent donations of toys, clothes, school supplies, books, and other needed items, and this gymnasium is the only place in Slidell that they could house them.  On the way in, we met the principal coming in for work.  Since the children are platooning, she comes in at 1:00 pm and stays until 8:00 or 9:00 at night.  She said that it has been "just crazy."  She reiterates the need for school uniforms.

Inside, we meet several teachers and administrators from different schools who are there to find things for their classrooms.  One teacher is delighted to find two brand-new toy fire trucks in boxes of toys.  I ask the Assistant Principal from Bayou-Lacombe how these items made it to this school and she says, "I don't know how they found us.  I'm just thankful that they did."  She mentions that one principal had a cousin in Zanesville, Ohio that knew people who owned a school supply store.  His church rallied and bought school supplies, and the store owners donated about $1000 worth.  They also mention that Mercy Corps had delivered a large number of school supplies to them during the first week of school.

On Tuesdays, teachers from all over St. Tammany fax in orders of what they need and the teachers at the center fill the orders and set them aside.  Students can come in, one class at a time, to repopulate their classroom libraries.  They hope to open it to the public on the weekend so that clothes can be distributed.

One of the teachers organizing the donations told us that she returned home after the storm to find three giant trees had crashed through the back of her house.  She stopped a truck with a "tree removal" sign on it and asked if the man could remove them.  He said, "My price is $5,000 per tree and I only take cash.  Take it or leave it."   She said she sat down on the curb and started to cry when he drove off.   Three Marines pulled up and asked if they could help.  She told them what happened and they found someone with a chainsaw and the three of them removed the trees for her.  She gave the man with the chain saw $500 and he was grateful to get it.  She and her husband, along with two grown children, their spouses, and her grandchildren now live in the front of the house--the back is too badly damaged.  She said, "It could have been worse...we could have lost the whole house and then none of us would have a place to go." 

At the end of our visit, Jill waves me over to a wall in the hallway, with what had to be the biggest smile I've ever seen on her face.  Along the wall are stacks and stacks of Amazon.com boxes.  These boxes contain the first shipments of airmatresses that PAMP members and their friends have sent.  Several of the teachers and a custodian, themselves homeless and living on floors and couches of relatives, ask us about these--we tell them to help themselves and take what they need.  We know it's what our members would want.  It's why we came here.

The Biggest House in Slidell

After a sobering journey through Lacombe and Slidell, we make it to the second distribution stop at the Northshore Harbor Center in Slidell.  At the entrance to the building, several National Guardsmen are standing guard with M-16s slung over their shoulders.  They are all business and a little intimidating.  We enter the building, and right inside the door a couple of Red Cross volunteers are manning a table.  "Can I help you?"  A young woman asks.  "We're here to see Kerry.  We have a truckload of supplies with us."  Jill replies.

I ask the Red Cross volunteers where they are from.  "California," replies the woman.  I tell her we're from Palo Alto, and she says she is from Orange County.  She's been on assignment for nearly three weeks and goes home on Thursday.  "It's been a long haul," she says wearily.  The other volunteer is from the Northeast.  They both seem tired and bored.  The volunteers sleep on green army cots in the back hallway.  They shower in mobile shower units on trucks outside.   I'm not sure if this is quite what they signed up for, but it seems like some kind of crazy endurance test.  At least they don't have to eat bugs like the people on "Survivor", but there's no chance for a million dollar pay-off at the end either.

To the right of their desk, an elderly gentleman is looking over a bulletin board covered with notes.  There are job postings, notes from people on the outside looking for loved ones, posters about events in Slidell--a hodgepodge of information.  Behind the bulletin board are a couple of laptop computers with an internet connection.  There are signs posted on the walls with "Rules" on them..."No Smoking/No Alcohol/No Drugs..."  Off to the left, a young man wearing a Red Cross vest is playing with two little kids, trying to get them to draw pictures.  The kids seem restless, but he is doing his best to engage them.

This building opened in May as a brand-new Convention Center and place for large gatherings, like weddings and parties.  The outside is painted a cheerful yellow, but it is now surrounded by a big field of mud.  Kerry, the Center Director, greets us warmly with a big smile. Kerry is a former San Francisco resident and she knew exactly where we were from, so we didn't have to explain where Palo Alto is.   She tells us that when she was hired, she never dreamed that she would be running a homeless shelter.   

Beyond the desk is a large open room with hundreds of green canvas army cots lined up inside.  Some are in rows and some are in squares--obviously family units "circling the wagons" and grouping themselves together.  The beds are neatly made, with blankets folded and pillows stacked high.  One or two have airmattresses on top, but mostly, they are just green canvas cots with blankets.  One person has left a polite note that reads, "Please do not sit on my bed.  Thank you."  There is something overwhelmingly sad about this place and I have to fight back tears when I see the children who live here.  It is brightly lit, but the cinderblock walls and flourescent lights give off an aura of a giant yellow jail cell with no windows.   There aren't many people inside, just a few kids and their mothers.  There are a few elderly residents sitting on their cots with blank looks on their faces, as though they just don't know what do do next.

The shelter is one of the last remaining shelters in the area.  Most of the other shelters that popped up right after the storm in schools and churches had recently closed, and the remaining residents were sent here.  President Bush recently declared that all the shelters should be closed by October 15, but that is largely dependent upon FEMA's ability to provide temporary housing for the people still living in the shelters.  The residents in this shelter are staying put in order to maintain a priority on the FEMA trailer list.   They believe that if they leave, they will lose their place in line for trailers.  By trailer, I do not mean a "mobile home" with several rooms, but more like an Airstream camping trailer that would be pulled behind a car--these units are small but at least offer some privacy, something that is sorely lacking in the shelter.  We were told that the Slidell area needs about 20,000 trailers; 300 have been delivered so far.  The number one need in St. Tammany right now is housing.

We are surprised that our truck is not there when we arrive, since Carlos told us he would head over there immediately and that was an hour ago.  The North Shore Harbor Center is too new to appear on Mapquest or any GPS systems--Carlos calls us from the interstate to say he is lost.  Kerry takes the phone and patiently explains to him how to get there.  She takes us to the loading dock in the back, where we finally see Carlos pull up.  He has trouble backing into the dock, and runs over a pile of debris.  A couple of volunteers are cleaning tables that had been soaked in the flood.  Kerry tells us that the building itself wasn't damaged in the flood, but the tables and chairs were stored in a couple of portables that flooded.  They are trying to salvage what they can of the tables, but most of the chairs are wrecked.

Carlos finally manages to maneuver the truck onto the dock.   The Red Cross volunteers bring hand trucks and start to unloaded the truck.  They tell us that the distribution will take place on Thursday.   I overheard one Red Cross Volunteer say to another, "This is just the stuff we needed,"  as she looked at the donation boxes stacked high in the hallway.  As they're unloading, I realize that I need to give Carlos his check to pay for the trip.  I look in my bag, but the blue folder is missing that has all my maps and information about the trip, along with the check.  I ask Jill if she has the check, but she says no, so I ask Michelle if she can take me back to our car in the Head Start parking lot.  She says "no problem" and we head out the door.  I look in the bag for my keys, but I don't find them either.  I empty everything out on a table, but there are no car keys in the bag or in my pocket.  Michelle goes back to the dock to ask Jill if she has the keys, because I remembered (or imagined) handing them to her to get something from the car before we left, though I don't know if she handed them back or not.

Michelle returns with Jill, who does not have the keys.  I start to panic and decide to call Joan at Head Start, while Jill calls Alamo.  Since we don't have the rental car contract (which is also in the blue folder), I'm not sure if they will help or not.  I'm in between full-blown freak-out mode and laughing hysterically; we're like "Lucy and Ethel Go on a Relief Mission."  We are Murphy's Law incarnate at this point.

I tell Joan what has happened and she says, "Was it one black key on a ring?  I think I've seen it."  She goes to look.  I am elated. 

She comes back and says, "Sorry, it was not on my desk.  Let me look around."  I am defeated. 

She goes away from the phone and looks around the office again and comes back.  "I found it!"  she exclaims.  I am so happy I can hardly stand it.  Michelle and I jump in her car and she takes me back to Head Start.  "It could be worse..." I think to myself.  "It could definitely be worse."

On the way back to Head Start, Michelle tells me that Jesse Jackson has sent a bus load of evacuees to New Orleans from Atlanta.  He tells people that they are from Louisiana and that they should be given jobs to rebuild New Orleans.  This is a nice idea, she says, only most of the people are not even from Louisiana to begin with...out of 200 people only 50 were really from New Orleans.  The rest just took a ride on the bus because he promised them jobs.

We get back to the Head Start just as Joan was about to leave.  There is a small yellow school bus from the Covington Head Start is parked at the entrance, loaded down with the boxes we brought.  Joan hands me the keys and apologizes for what happened in the morning.  I tell her not to worry about it, that we were happy that things were going to people who needed them and that was all that mattered.  Michelle apologizes to her and says, "I'm sorry if I offended you by taking over, but I grew up here.  I know how hard these ladies worked to bring these things to us and I just didn't want to see it become a free-for-all."  Joan says she understands, and the two of them hug it out.

"Our troubles aren't over yet," says Joan.  "The bus from Covington came but it overheated in the parking lot, so we don't know when it can go back or if it needs to be fixed."  The Custodian tells her not to worry, that it will all be just fine.  I give her a PAMP hat as a souvenir of our visit.

I get in the car, and lo and behold, no folder.  Jill's purse is in there, but the folder is not to be found anywhere in the car or the trunk.  I tell Michelle, and she says, "Are you talking about a blue folder with some maps in it?"  That's the one, I tell her.  "It was in my truck and I handed it to Jill when we got out at the Harbor Center."  I call Jill, but get her voicemail and I leave a message for her to give the red envelope in the folder to Carlos before he leaves.  I call Carlos to  tell him that Jill has his check, but all I get is static-y rap music on his voicemail.  I say goodbye to Michelle, who has to take off for her daughter's back to school night.  She says she will try to make it to dinner with us, but doesn't know if she can or not.

Meanwhile, back at the shelter...After the truck was unloaded,  Jill started handing out Pack & Play portable cribs to all the moms with babies--they were very grateful to get these, since they are sleeping on these tiny cots and there were no cribs for babies.  The babies have been sleeping with their parents on these cots for weeks.  Jill took one of the moms to the back, where all of the things were being stored, so that she could pick one out.  One of the Red Cross workers stopped her and yelled at her.  "What are you doing?" she demanded.  "You're not following our distribution protocol!  You are going to cause a riot!  Don't you know this is where we sleep?  You can't bring people back here!" 

Jill was taken aback by this, and said, "These are for the families with babies.  Kerry said I could hand them out."  The volunteer backed off, but was not happy. Jill had other encounters with the Red Cross volunteers that were less than stellar.  When she asked why the shelter seemed so empty, one of them told her, "They're all out getting drunk and smoking crack.  There will be a ruckus in here tonight."  Kerry and the shelter residents told her that most of the adults had gone to work. 

Jill brought along a video camera and asked if she could tape some of the shelter residents.  She told me later, "They were so funny...some people didn't want to be taped, but the ones who did had a lot to say.  They were joking and and telling me all kinds of stories.  There was one little girl who looked like my three year old.  I wanted to take her home with me.  There was a woman with a baby and when I asked her how old her baby was, she said, 'She's not my baby; her mama is in high school and she's at school right now.  I'm the baby's aunt.'"  One teenage boy, back from school, told Jill, "I live in the biggest house in all of Slidell...Just look at the size of this place!" 

After I return and finally pay Carlos, we meet a little five year old girl with strawberry blonde hair and big, wide blue eyes. She has bug bites all over her arms and legs, and she is wearing her mom's sneakers, about 5 sizes too big for her.  She looks like an extra from a road show of "Annie."  She is sitting on her Grandma's lap, by the computers.  When I ask her name, she turns shy and hugs her Grandma's neck.  I say, "Let me guess...is your name Princess?  Rumplestilskin?  Hillary Duff?" 

"No," she says slyly, "my nickname is Angel." 

Her grandma looks surprised, "Since when is your nickname Angel?"

"Since I just made it up five minutes ago."

Angel gives Jill some of her purple heart-shaped Mardi Gras beads.  She calls Jill "the Lady from California" and tells her the hearts are "so you'll remember me in California."  Jill promises to remember her and send her something from California.  We say our goodbyes and head out the door. 

Driving out, a pair of young National Guardsmen wave at us.  "They look like babies." I tell Jill.  She agrees.  She tells me that one of the National Guardsmen inside told her that he just got back from Iraq.  "The situation here in Louisiana," he said, "is much worse."

The Contents of Their Lives

On Tuesday, October 11, the sun is streaming into my room at 7:00 am and I wake up in an unfamiliar setting.  I peer outside and it looks like several pine trees in the back yard have fallen and been taken away.  Things look very different in the light of day, and as we depart, we see that the entire neighborhood has blue tarps on the roofs.  The blue tarps cover roof damage--some had trees fall on the houses, some had shingles blow off, some had holes torn in the roofs.  It looks like not a single house went unscathed.  We see the piles and piles of tree debris up and down the block, and now start to notice other things--a toilet cistern, a sofa covered with mildew, sheetrock, insulation, and more and more trees.  John told us that many of these pine trees were 100 feet tall and bigger, and now they are no more than a tangle of branches and logs set out on the curb.

Out along the highway, what was once dense pine woods now looks like a scraggly forest of Charlie Brown Christmas trees.  About every fourth or fifth tree along the highway is uprooted or snapped in half like a twig.  The ones that remain upright have gnarled branches stripped and shredded of leaves or boughs.  The trees look worn out and forlorn.

We are relieved to find that McDonald's and Burger King have reopened so we can get a quick bite to eat before starting our day.  Fast food restaurants are like cockroaches--when the last vestiges of civilization have fallen away, they will find a way to proliferate.  There is a long line of cars at the drive-thru, so we go inside and plot our strategy for the day.  Jill needs a cassette for her video camera, so we make a quick stop at Target as well.  There are two young police officers languidly sitting at a table by the door.  They are wearing black pants and t-shirts with white letters that say "POLICE" on them, along with black baseball caps with white block letters that say "POLICE". 

The Target looks exactly like the one in Mountain View that we shop in, except there are very few shoppers.  I glance at the children's underwear section to see if they have it in stock (we're here factfinding, after all).  A lone package of Dora the Explorer Girls' Briefs hang on the display, but otherwise, there's not much there. There are, however, rows and rows of untouched Christmas decorations. 

At the check-out line, one of the police officers is behind us.  Jill has on a black hat with white letters that say "PAMP".  "Excuse me, Ma'am. What's PAMP?" the officer asks. 

"We're from the Parents' Club of Palo Alto and Menlo Park, in California so it stands for Palo Alto-Menlo Park," she responds.  "We're here to deliver some supplies from California." 

He looks at us quizzically, as though "PAMP" doesn't quite register with "FEMA", "POLICE", "FBI", and "DEA"--the normal law-and-order bearers of these type of hats.  A few months ago, we ordered these hats for our volunteer team as a clever way to publicize our new website , and based it on all of those others.  We never imagined that we would be fulfilling this role in any capacity.  We're a mom's club, for crying out loud.  We're supposed to be having playgroups and worrying about potty training, not crossing the country and bringing children underwear.  Somehow, though, the hat makes us look a little more like helpers.

"Where are you from?"  I ask the officer. 

"Texas, Ma'am," he drawls. "I'm just here to help out."  Things are orderly and calm, so I suppose he's doing his job and protecting Target from potential looters or perhaps the occasional riot in the underwear aisle. 

"Do I really look like a 'ma'am'?"  Jill asks me as we exit.  I tell her that in the South, Julia, her 5 year old, would be called "ma'am".

We head out and make it to the Lacombe Head Start, the first stop for unloading.  We are greeted by Joan, the Center Director and Cathy, the District PTA President.  Jill tries to call Carlos, and finds that he is "in Louisiana".  Cathy speaks to him, and finds out that he is somewhere around Baton Rouge, so he'll be a couple of hours late, given the traffic in Baton Rouge at this time of day.  We are joined by Joanne, a member of the Head Start board, and by Ginny, who is the Pre-K Liaison from the St. Tammany School Board.  Jill has been in contact with Ginny for weeks, so she greets us like we are old friends.  She tells us, "I want to nominate y'all to take over FEMA."  I'll let Jill have that job; I'm holding out for the Supreme Court.

We take a tour of the facility, which was not damaged by the storm.  It's cheerful and clean, and there are many, many young children playing in the rooms and in the yard.  The kids look happy and well-cared for, and the teachers seem patient and kind.  This could be any pre-school classroom in California or Ohio or New York.  The difference is that these children have survived one of the worst natural disasters in history.

We go to an infant/toddler room and one little girl, about a year old, cries to be picked up.  Joan says that this center did not have infants and toddlers before, but they were asked to accommodate them after the storm.  She doesn't have enough cribs, she says, so the babies are doubling up at nap time.  We've brought 6 or 7 cribs and bedding on our truck, and several of our members have sent cribs via on-line purchases.  She is very grateful, since having babies sleep in these conditions threatens their licensing guidelines. "I don't have choice," she says, "They told me we have to take these kids, but they don't give us the proper equipment.  What can I do?"

Joan takes the crying baby and swings her onto her hip and carries her as we continue on the tour.  It's clear that she loves these kids and treats them like they were her own.  She tells us that her house was flooded, so the bottom floor is unliveable, so she and her husband live on the top floor.  "It's depressing to go home," she says.  "It's so filthy and I hate to even walk through the bottom floor.  I guess it could be worse...at least we can live in the top part of our house." 

Joan tells us that her husband is in construction, and had worked in New Orleans prior to the storm.  He left his tool box there, and after the storm, he went back to retrieve it.  "You know men and their tools," she laughed.  He had to dig it out of two feet of muck, but he found it and brought it home.  "He had a lot invested in those tools," she said.  "He was so proud that he found them."  Small victories are the ones that matter most, it seems.  Using his own tools makes him feel more "normal" she tells us.  Someone adds, "It's those moments of 'normal' that feel so good.  It's what we live for."

Since it looks like Carlos won't be here for a while, the PTA representatives offer to take us for a ride and tour of a nearby elementary school, Chatha-Ima, that is on the list of "sister schools" of our Bridge of Caring program.  The school sustained minimal damage and looked very much like any school that you would find in California (except for the brick walls!).  About 90% of the children were wearing uniforms of dark green polo shirts and khaki pants or skirts.  The ones not in uniform were primarily students who came to St. Tammany from New Orleans and surrounding areas and were "new students", according to the Vice Principal.  The school allowed the children to come without uniforms because uniforms were scarce and there was little money to buy clothes.  The PTA members told us that uniforms, socks and underwear were a fundamental need right now, particularly for the children from surrounding areas who were temporarily calling this area "home." 

We hurried back to the Head Start building, and called Carlos again.  He was on the interstate nearby, but unsure of how to find us.  One of the local moms got on the phone with him and gave him instructions.  By the time he finally arrived, a crowd of about 20-30 moms had gathered and were waiting to unload the truck.  Several of them had infants, one of whom was only 3 weeks old.  These women were primarily the mothers of the children inside the facility and had been told that a truck was coming with some baby supplies that they could have.  Some of these women had lost everything in the hurricane and ensuing flood; others whose homes were left standing had taken in numerous relatives and friends left homeless, and were living with 10-20 people in a modest house.  They were eager to bring things home for their families and others and were very appreciative of our efforts and of the fact that we had come so far to meet them.

After what seemed like an hour of trying to figure out how to get the truck into the parking lot, the women, along with the school custodian and another man, started unloading the truck, hoisting heaving boxes, strollers, cribs, baby gear, and all kinds of baby items.  The PTA moms helped, too, and Jill and I carried our fair share of boxes.  Jill designated several areas for backpacks, clothes, gear, etc.  I told Carlos and Michelle, who were on the truck, to stop when they reached a row of wooden pallets that John from Relocation Project had put up to mark the end of the Head Start donations and the beginning of the Shelter donations.  It seemed like the boxes had no end, and Michelle asked if I was sure that ALL of this was for Lacombe.  They seemed astonished that we brought such a big truck--a 48 foot trailer full to the ceiling with donations from our community to theirs.

At one point, I was pulled aside to talk with Joanne, a Board Member from the Head Start District Program.  She told me, "It may seem as though people here are doing okay, that things are somewhat back to normal, but it's not.  This community has suffered in ways that I can't even begin to describe.  Our big fear is that once the media attention dies down -- and it has already-- is that people will just forget about us.  If that happens, and help stops coming, this community will die."  She gave me a gift of a box of greeting cards that she had made using the drawings made by children in the Head Start Program.  I told her that our group was having a fundraiser soon and that we could sell them for her if she wanted.  She promised to send me a case. 

A group  of PTA representatives sidetracks me, to thank us for coming down.  They seem overwhelmed by what we have brought.  One of them has lost her home and jokes that she is now living in a "gated community"--a few trailers surrounded by a chainlink fence.  Later, after she leaves, another of the moms tells me, "She'd never ask for herself, but she really did lose everything in the storm.  Would it be ok if we took a backpack for her?"  I told her to please take one for the other mom and let her know that we insisted that she have it.  Our members worked so hard to fill these backpacks with useful items, it would be a shame for her not to have one.

When I return  to the front of the building, one of the Head Start employees pulls me aside and says quietly, "Miss Jill is upset."  I ask why, and she says, "People were starting to grab boxes and load them into their cars, and I don't think that was what she had in mind."  I go inside the building, where some of the the PTA and school reps are meeting, but I don't see Jill.  The mood has changed from festive to tense.   Evidently, all the moms who had waited all morning for the truck to arrive had been told that they could take whatever they wanted, and they started to carry off entire boxes.   Jill asked them to carry everything inside and stack it to wait for buses and vans from the other programs to come and take things away.  When I finally see her, she looks frazzled.  She was worried that if people just took random boxes, there would not be enough to go around.  Jill had given specific instructions to the Executive Director, who apparently did not relate this to the staff.  All they seemed to know was that a truck was coming with some things for the Head Start families.  They had no idea of the scope or size of the donation and were surprised when they saw how big the truck was.

Evidently, some of the women started to take large quantities of things, until Jill and Michelle had to gently remind everyone that the boxes were to be distributed to 15 other programs as well.  One person wanted to take a box marked "towels", probably not realizing that there were at least 50 towels in the box, and there were only 2 or 3 boxes of towels on the truck.  Each box of baby clothes at about 300-500 pieces in it, packed and folded neatly to maximize the number of items that could go into each box.   Jill and her folding team ran into a box shortage at some point prior to our trip and had to cram as much as possible into each box.  I don't know if the people who wanted to take entire boxes realized this or not.  I suppose that it could have been worse...at least we knew for sure that the things we brought were desirable and needed.  Each person got at least one backpack or diaper bag.  Jill said she saw someone take off with 10 backpacks and several diaper bags.  Ginny and Cathy were very apologetic.  I told them that I thought that if someone took more than their fare share, I believed it would get to people who needed it.  We don't know how many people were living together, or if they had neighbors in need.  It seems unlikely that they would be able to sell any of it, given the fact that no one had any money to spare. 

After everything was moved inside and the crowd had dispersed, we were taken to lunch at one of the few open restaurants in Lacombe by the PTA delegation.  They told us stories of how they had evacuated to relatives' homes and hotels, and come home to find trees planted in their houses, roofs damaged, and water inside the house.  Those who did not have water or wind damage had taken in relatives.  Michelle's family had 17 people living together in a 2 bedroom house.  They considered themselves lucky.  Cathy's family rode out the storm in their house; they sustained minimal damage and no flooding, but many of their neighbors had trees fall on their houses, and they were without power for weeks.  Things had started to get better, they said, because stores were opening and the electricity was back on in the north shore.  Lots of people who worked in New Orleans might never return, they said, since much of the oil business moved to Houston and planned to stay there.

After lunch, Michelle took us on a driving tour of Lacombe.  There was a pile of rotting clothes on the side of the road that Michelle pointed to.  "That is what remains of clothes brought down here from a church in West Virginia or Ohio.  Someone had a cousin up there who organized a clothing drive for us and they sent a whole semi truckload of clothes.  They just set it all out in front of this strip mall, and it was a free-for-all.  People came and took stuff and the rest was left on the ground.  Then, we had to evacuate because of Rita, and the rest of the clothes got left out and rained on.  All those good people's efforts got ruined because there was nothing set up to hand things out in an orderly manner.  I saw this happen once, and I just couldn't stand by and let it happen to y'all.  I know how much effort you put into this." 

We appreciated her candor and her willingness to stick her neck out for us.  As a local, she could step in and take charge of the situation.  As outsiders, it would look like we were picking who was "worthy" or not and that was not our goal.  I think Jill was upset because for weeks, she's poured heart and soul into this project.  She spent hours sorting and folding and boxing things just-so; to see someone reject an item by tossing it on the ground was more than she could take.  Michelle saw what was happening and stopped it before it got out of control.  As for me, I was not even aware that there was a problem until after the fact, so I don't think it was any kind of melee, just something that needed to be handled swiftly, and matter-of-factly.  I give them all kinds of credit for doing what needed to be done and handling it with finesse and grace.  Brownie and Dubya need to take lessons from these two.

As we drove around, we could tell that from the interstate to Lake Pontchartrain, the conditions got progressively worse.  At first we saw houses that were standing, but every every house had a mini-landfill of furniture, sheet rock, fixtures, appliances, plumbing, toys, TVs, books, etc. stacked in the front yard, all covered in mold and mildew. "What you see here by the road," Michelle said, "Is the entire content of these homes...the content of people's lives." 

By the time we reached the lake, we saw many more houses that were near-collapse and some that were blown entirely off their foundations.  There was a popular seafood restaurant that sat on the lake front, but all that remains is a blue concrete slab.  The rest is somewhere out in Lake Ponchartrain or swept off into the Gulf.  Michelle told us that the wind damage was one thing, but the real devastation occurred when the storm surge swept 18 feet of water into the area, for at least 3 miles in-land.  We saw a boat in middle of the median on the interstate, and random items, like so much trash, dotting the landscape.  Rather than fast food containers and soda bottles that usually litter the roadside, there were ruined photo albums and clothing and knicknacks...the contents of people's homes; the contents of their lives before the storm.

 

Getting There is Half the Battle

Not-so-bright, but very, very early, Jill and her step-dad Dave swing by to pick me up for our trip to Louisiana.  After 10 years of traveling all over the world with Frank, packing is a no-brainer.  I travel light with only one small rolling suitcase that is mostly full of PAMP hats to give to people we meet.  A quick detour to Starbucks, and we're on our way!

We're flying United to Denver, Denver to New Orleans.  Last night, my husband said, "Did you know there's a big snowstorm in Denver?  They're talking early ski season."  Hmmm.  I shrugged it off. What can you do?

At the airport, we zip through the auto-check-in kiosk.  The flight is leaving on time and we have plenty of time for breakfast.   We manage to get seats together and we're off!   The flight is pleasant and uneventful.  At some point, the pilot says, "There's snow in Denver," but we don't see it until we start to descend.   The plane is suddenly enveloped in a thick, bright, white soup.  We can't see anything and don't know that we've landed until we feel a "bump" as the tires hit the runway.  We look out and there is a vast field of snow.  It looks like the Arctic.  I half expected a polar bear to wander by.  We taxi in and the monitors all say that our flight is scheduled to leave on time.  That's good news, because I really don't want to drive around New Orleans in the dark after curfew.

We get to the gate, and they announce a delay...only a half hour while they push back the plane that is there.  Jill goes to get food, and she meets a couple who sat on the tarmac for 5 hours that morning and they are NOT HAPPY.  Our gate attendant keeps saying, "Just a little bit longer folks!"  An hour later, we board.

We sit at the gate for another hour, in our seats, not moving.  Some people who previously thought they were going to miss the flight were able to board, since we're not going anywhere anytime soon.  As we're waiting, Jill says, "Let's call Carlos!"  Carlos is the truck driver who is bringing our truckload of donated goods to Louisiana.  She tries him, and gets nothing but static.  She has a message from John at Relocation Project  that Carlos called from Texas.  We're not sure what that means, since Texas is, well, as big as Texas.  I reassure her that it will be fine.  Jill is annoyed because Carlos told her he was going with another driver, but it turns out that he is driving all by himself.  He's making a 33 hour trek from Mountain View, California to Slidell, Louisiana with no back-up.  He was supposed to leave Saturday, but didn't leave until Sunday.  She's worried he won't make it.  My dad drove a truck for 30 years, so I know that trucking is not an exact science.  I figure he'll make it...eventually.  Just like we'll make it...eventually. 

The plane finally starts to move and we go about 20 feet from the gate and turn around.  The pilot says, "The first officer has noticed there is a bolt sticking up on the wing.  We need to go back have maintenance look at it."  The people on the plane give out a collective groan.  The flight attendant puts on a movie, aptly titled "Kicking and Screaming," which causes a collective laugh when she announces it.  The plane has a somber mood.  It's full of relief workers, contractors, and people going home for the first time or going back to see what they can find in what is left of their homes.  The man next to us works for a contractor that has trucks with mobile shower units for relief workers.  At this rate, Carlos will be sitting there waiting for us when we arrive.

After a couple more hours of waiting, de-icing, and worrying, we finally take off.  In flight, we watch the movie "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants."  Ironcally, Jill and I are forming a "traveling pants" sisterhood ourselves--we're traveling halfway across the counry to meet a truckload of pants (and backpacks). 

Six and a half hours late, we finally arrive in New Orleans.  It's 10:30 pm and we were supposed to arrive at 4:00 pm.  We could have flown to London in the amount of time we've been on this plane.  There is a family sitting across the aisle from me with an adorable 15 month old baby.  He slept most of the time, and is cute and playful the rest of the time.  People in adjoining rows compliment the parents on what a good baby he is.  They look relieved.  The baby has smiles for everyone.

The airport is dark and quiet.  The only people there are the ones who are waiting to board our plane to go back to Denver, a few security guards, and some police.  I kept thinking of the pictures on the news of the Louis Armstrong International Airport being turned into a medical triage center and a make-shift morgue.  There is no sign of any of that, but it's still not the same as when I visited New Orleans in previous years.  People are worn out and frazzled.  As we exit security, a teenager on our flight runs into the arms of her dad and starts sobbing, loud, convulsive sobs.  What this girl has been through, I can only imagine.  The six hour delay was probably the least of it.

We left blue skies and 70 degrees in California to snowy conditions in Denver to tropical heat in New Orleans.  It's balmy and muggy even at night, and there is no air conditioning in the terminal.  We proceed to the rental car counter, which has a sign telling us to take a shuttle to the Hertz lot.  We don't see any shuttles going around, and the signs are hard to see in the dim lighting.  An Alamo driver pulls up and I go to ask him where the Hertz stop is.  He says,"Hertz closed at 7:00 because of curfew.  If you'd like a car, ma'am, we're the only ones open, and you might want to tell those people across the street that Avis, Budget and all the rest are closed too."  I wave for Jill to join me and yell at the people standing at the curb to come to the Alamo bus.  The driver explains this to all of them. He is polite and earnest, and without him, we'd be sleeping in the airport. 

We get to the Alamo counter and rent a champagne-colored Grand Am and a GPS system.  Enoch had warned us that roads might be closed, so a GPS would come in handy in case we needed to detour or got lost.  We headed out into the dark of night,  and took a few wrong turns.  It was dark and the streetlights gave off an anemic yellow glow, and many street signs were down.  There were not many cars on the road, and absolutely no people walking on the streets.  A few neon lights flickered on businesses, but many more were broken or not illuminated.  We finally found the overpass leading to I-10 and were relieved to see a little more traffic.  The overpass looked vaguely familiar, and I don't know if it was because it was shown on the news as a place where people were spending the night right after the storm, or because I'd been there before.  We found the Causeway entrance without incidence.

We had planned to go the long-way around Lake Pontchartrain, but some Louisiana natives at the airport in Denver heard us talking and told us that the Causeway was now open and that was a better route.   The twin-span bridge connecting Slidell to New Orleans was blown out by the hurricane.  The Causeway  over Lake Pontchartrain is the longest bridge in the world passing over water, at a little over 23 miles.   In the middle of the night, it feels like we are driving to Europe.  Jill makes a few calls home and tells our friend Pamela that "this bridge has no end."  We keep driving until Jill thinks she sees land.  I tell her she's hallucinating, but eventually, we hit land.

We make it to the home of Karen and John, two very kind-hearted people who agreed to take us in during our stay.  I called half a dozen hotels in St. Tammany prior to leaving, and got recorded messages that said, "We are closed due to hurricane damage" or "We have no rooms available through March."  I finally got a desk clerk on the line who told me that all the hotels in the area were full of FEMA employees, relief workers, evacuees, and others and that there was not a hotel room to be had for 200 miles.  Jill asked one of our club members with ties to Louisiana for help, and a friend of hers set us up with Karen and John.  I am reminded of Blanche DuBois in "A Street Car Named Desire," who said, "I have always relied on the kindness of strangers."  We're in the same boat as Blanche right now, and once again, strangers have come through for us.

Under the deceptive cloak of darkness, Karen and John's neighborhood did not look that bad.  There were big piles of tree debris on every front lawn, waiting to be picked up, but the houses looked to be intact.  It looked like everyone had a big backyard clean-up party and were setting out neatly piled mounds of yard trimmings for composting.   

We finally meet our hosts, after John comes out side and waives down our car.  Karen and John were former teachers in New Orleans.  Karen had retired, but John had just been recently laid off, since schools in New Orleans will not be open for a while.  They ran a teen pregnancy prevention program in high schools in New Orleans, and Karen previously taught Special Ed.  They now work with a coalition of churches around the country who are helping displaced people to relocate to new areas.  The churches, some in Ohio, Iowa, and California, offer housing, job training, and counseling to people.  There is a young man sleeping on the couch that is one of the people relocating to California.  They tell us that he was kicked out of the Red Cross shelter because he took too many anti-anxiety meds and had to be taken to the hospital.  He is someone who struggled with mental illness, and the Fresno group has a group home for him to live in while he gets his GED and job training. 

They tell us that their Hurricane story.  The left with a small TV, clothes, and some photos.  They did not know if they would have a home when they returned, but "God is merciful," said Karen, "and we were spared."  Karen had the foresight to stuff the chimney with pillows and blankets, so that even though their chimney was damaged during the storms, they came home and had no water in their house.  Everything was intact except for some 100 foot pine-trees in the backyard (now cut up and sitting out front to be removed).  They said they felt lucky that when the trees fell, they didn't fall on their house.  Their lovely home was sprinkled with religious icons--Virgin Mary statuary, images of Jesus, books on faith.  It's clear that faith has brought them to the work they are doing now, and taking in total strangers who need refuge is not an anomaly, it's a calling. 

Katrina Relief--Send Airbeds!

Tomorrow, October 10, I will be traveling to Louisiana to help people affected by Hurricane Katrina in a very direct way.  I am currently the President of The Parents' Club of Palo Alto & Menlo Park, and in the past few weeks, our club has collected about 800 backpacks for infants, children, and adults that we will be distributing to the St. Tammany Parish Head Start Program, in Lacombe, Louisiana.  Along with the backpacks, we have a truckload of baby gear, clothing, household goods, and other items to deliver to that program and to a shelter at the North Shore Harbor Center in Slidell housing 300 people there.  My friend and colleague Jill A. and I will be meeting the truck and helping to distribute these items to the people, and meeting with school and shelter officials to find out more about what is needed there.  The sad reality is that the people of St. Tammany Parish (and I'm sure other places as well) are not getting some of the most basic supplies that they need to start the slow and painful clean up and rebuilding process.  This is just one small gesture from one community to another; we know that much more is needed now and in the future.

Anne, one of our members, came up with the idea to do the backpack drive and for weeks Jill's been living in a house full of backpacks loaded with office supplies for adults, comfort items for little kids, and diaper bags for new moms.  Our friends at the Katrina Relocation collected and stored all the donated goods and arranged for the truck.  My back-of-the-envelope calculation of what is on that truck comes to over $200,000 worth of donations.  I'm a little nervous that the truck won't arrive on time, but at this point, what ever happens, happens.

The other day, Jill received a call from Slidell Junior High School.  They have students and teachers there who have no cots or mattresses and are sleeping on the floor in trailers and tents.  Some have resorted to sleeping in their cars.  Their homes have been destroyed and they have no place else to go. To help them, we have put up a Wish List on Amazon.com and are asking everyone we know to donate an airbed to this shelter so that these folks can have a comfortable place to sleep.  If you'd like to help people affected by Hurricane Katrina in a real, direct way, please consider sending them an airbed. 

With shipping, the total is about $25 per bed, and ordering is very simple.  We have about 180 ordered;  they need 1,000.  Amazon has these on back-order, so feel free to find another source, or go for a nicer model if you can.  If you have one you are not using, please think about mailing it to them.  The airbeds should be shipped to:

Slidell Junior High School
Attn: Marian Arrowsmith
333 Pennsylvania Avenue
Slidell, La 70458

Our group has been raising funds for hurricane relief for about a month now.  Our one-day bake sale brought in over $22,000 for the American Red Cross.  We've been astonished and humbled by the generosity and kindness shown by our membership and our friends and family around the country.  We hope that people will help us continue this effort by sending airbeds and letting others know about our drive. 

We were introduced to St. Tammany when we joined forces with other groups from the Palo Alto schools in a program called "Bridge of Caring" that is designed to be a long-term effort to help people specifically in that parish.  Our backpack drive was the kick-off, to a series of events to benefit seven "sister schools" that the Bridge of Caring is helping.  The project involves a long-term effort for getting Palo Alto school children to collect school supplies, do penny drives, and write letters to kids in Louisiana.

Enoch, a dad in our club, just returned from St. Bernard Parish in New Orleans.  He's a doctor and he was treating patients out of a tent in a Wal-Mart parking lot.  The homes there are deserted and people are allowed in for short periods to salvage what they can.  The stories he heard were harrowing and heartbreaking.  He recounted his trip in his blog.

I'll do a full report of my trip when I get back.  I'm sure we will be adding to the Wish List as we find out more about the needs.