OK Straight to the point: People need help. No finger-pointing or complaining. No debating here. This is where those who need help connect with those who offer it. If you have a place in your home and your heart, post here. If you need a place, a job, or anything else, post here. CONNECT HEREAlso, this is the place to post links to companies which match donations, organize food drives, or any other activity that can help our fellow humans.
A Call to Action from American Atheists “All we have is each other…” AMERICAN ATHEISTS urges all fellow nonbelievers to contribute to therescue and other humanitarian efforts in the devastating wake ofHurricane Katrina. A number of secular, non-religious aid organizations are active inthis relief campaign. They do not incorporate a religious message intheir operations, discriminate on the basis of religion, nor do theyproselytize to those vulnerable people currently in need. AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS (Founded by Deist-Unitarian ClaraBarton) http://www.redcross.org UNITED WAY OF AMERICAhttp://www.unitedway.org NETWORK FOR GOOD (has numerous listings for helping groups, bothreligious and secular) http://www.networkforgood.org HUMANE SOCEITY OF THE UNITED STATES! (Our winged and four-leggedfriends need help, too!) http://www.hsus.org * OTHER CHARITIES will be listed as we learn about their legitimateparticipation in the relief effort. Everyone contributor should beaware of scams; unfortunately, not all “charities” are legitimate andhave a proven track record. Also, there are “religious”outreaches which do not proselytize as part of their efforts to helpothers. If you have a suggestion for an established, reputablesecular humanitarian group that is worth of our support and would liketo see it listed here, contact webmaster@atheists.org and we may beable to include it in this list. The list will be found athttp://www.atheists.org .
And from Blair Scott, AL State Director of American Atheists:I will start with how Katrina affected my family. My sister lived in Biloxi. She escaped Biloxi just in time and went to Mobile. Her apartment is gone. Her job is gone. She cannot get back into Biloxi to her friends. We know for sure that at least one of her friends is dead and she is worried that others may be dead as well. Because Mobile has been without any power, my sister was not aware of how bad things were in Biloxi. I had the unpleasant experience of explaining to her that Katrina wiped Biloxi off the map. Biloxi consists of nothing more than a few skeletons of hotels and some casinos resting on top of houses and hotels. She wanted to go back to Biloxi to find her friends and go back to work. It was heartbreaking to tell her that she will NEVER go back to Biloxi. The casinos will not rebuild until Biloxi is rebuilt, which will take years to complete. Officials are telling many people that evacuated to stay where they are and start new lives there, never to return to Biloxi. My wife?s brother and his family stayed in Mobile and lost a part of their roof. Her brother has patched things as best as possible, but the storm destroyed his son?s room, including all his toys and clothes. His wife stood in line today at McDonalds for two hours to get food because they are out of food at the house. They finally got power restored to them this evening, but the water in the walls is making it dangerous to keep the electricity on in the house. My sister finally made it to my Aunt?s house in Mobile and she will stay there. She only has her car and the clothes on her back. My other family members in Mobile are struggling to find water and food. Most of them had power restored this evening, but some are still without power. There is no gas in Mobile, and the few gas stations that have gas do not have the electricity to pump the gas. Contacts are telling me that there is no gas south of Montgomery, Alabama. I have not been able to contact many friends in the area and we are growing concerned. Some friends of ours live in Gautier, Mississippi and Katrina hit that area hard. No one has heard from them. Out of the fifty plus people that we knew at the UUFM, we have only heard from five families. I was able to contact one of my friends today and he was standing in line for over three hours to get ice and water. He is out of gas for his generator. One other friend said his family is okay, but a tree crashing through the living room killed his neighbor?s wife. I am still waiting to get in contact with others. Katrina destroyed two of the jails that I work at in New Orleans. If you have seen the video of all the people in orange suits, they are from Orleans Parish Prison, which is one of the jails I worked at. One of the jails I worked at in Mississippi is in trouble. Many of the jails I work at in Tennessee are having problems related to circuits because of the damage in the Gulf coast area. We had tropical force winds up here at home and I have debris all over my yard. I will try to clean up tomorrow. There are many trees down and over 15,000 people in the Madison County area without power. Several times while watching the news we have come close to tears. It is hard to talk to family and friends and not cry. There are so many sad stories. Yvonne and I have been glued to the TV watching CNN, MSNBC, and FOX (yes, we are watching FOX). We are sitting here stunned. We are sitting here in shock. We are sitting here in grief. We know it is bad when the often-stoic reporters are crying during their reports. It was refreshing to hear the mayor of New Orleans finally admit that the death toll can be in the thousands. Listening to friends and family describe what happened it is not hard to imagine a death toll above that of 9/11. Five hundred thousand people live in Orleans Parish and approximately 80% of them evacuated. That leaves 100,000 people still in the city. Twenty-five thousand of them are in the Super Dome and approximately 5,000 are on the I-10 after rescue or walking there themselves. That leaves many people still unaccounted. Our thoughts are with all those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Our hearts pang with the love of humanity and the grief of humankind. Times like these remind me of why I am an Atheist. I am angry with the government. I was a Mass Casualty Coordinator at the Naval Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida and I know what government should do and what government can do. I am angry with the government for not reacting in a timely and efficient manner. If we can air drop yellow packages of food in Afghanistan then why can we not airdrop food to people in Biloxi, Pass Christian, Waveland, Bayou Le Batre, Slidell, and New Orleans? You asked me you could do anything for us. There is only one thing I can think of. Please encourage people to donate money to the American Red Cross. Please go to www.redcross.org http://www.redcross.org and donate money. That is what we need right now. I would also encourage people to recognize that this is not a state or regional disaster. This is a national disaster. This will have economic and social repercussions throughout the United States. Gas prices raised five cents locally in less than three hours. New Orleans is responsible for twenty-five percent of the oil in the United States. New Orleans is a major hub for import and export and the hub for river transportation on the Mississippi. New Orleans supports a large tourist industry and a large cruise ship facility. In addition, the social impact will be devastating. Think about this for one second, there are over one million people that are instantly homeless, jobless, have children out of school, have no clothes, own no property or possessions, cannot access their money from destroyed local banks, and are in need of physical and psychological care. A temporary housing in another Dome or a tent city will not cut it. Most of the people that evacuated need to stay where they are and start over. They need to find a new job, buy a new house, and begin a life away from where they evacuated. Thank you for your concern. Please keep us in your thoughts and encourage friends and neighbors to donate money to the Red Cross. In reason,The Scott family: Blair, Yvonne, Rose, and Rachael Blair ScottAlabama State Director, American Atheistshttp://www.atheists.org/al/bscott@atheists.orgPO Box 1352Madison, AL 35758
Wish I could do something more from here, Anyone stuck in NZ and needs a place to stay please feel free to leave a message here and I’ll send contact details. Will give to Red cross. Goodluck all
Blair
Can we use your letter to send to our local newspapers? Thanks for filling us in on whats really happening. JIM
Contributing what I can now. Tried to contribute to the Red Cross on the phone but after 45 minutes of waiting, will try on line. This is a good thing. Means many people are trying to help.
I lived in the Biloxi, Gautier, Ocean Springs, and the Mobile area for many years and I have already lost one good friend there. No contact with anyone else. It is frustration to say the least.
I was really pleased to see foreign countries offering to help. Even Saudi Arabia has offered to drop oil prices. Venezuela has also offered assistance even after the American Christian Fanatics have called for his assassination. I do not know if Bush has condemned this rhetoric from the Christian Fanatics but I see the president of Venezuela if smart enough to know that these fanatics are a minority. This is also the first time that I can remember where other nations have offered to help us out.
Can anyone tell me what has Bush done in regards to this disaster? Besides his call for prayers, giving up a couple of days of vacation, and releasing some token stockpiles of oil.
I dontated to Red Cross today, and I plan on sending more when I can and also try to become part of the rebuilding effort. I may only be able to provide architectural drafting services but I’ll do what I can.
A more constructive use of a credit card I can’t imagine.
To those donating: Remember to check with your employer to see if they will match your contribution
All,
If you wish to donate to the Red Cross and cannot get through on the web site, Washington Mutual is taking donations for them at its branches, so please consider donating there.
Thanks for the tip Dave. I’ll ask my boss later today.
Okay, after I donated (and wept at the reports) I registered http://www.helpneworleansjobs.com. You won’t see it yet as it will take about 3 days to propagate.
The idea is this: create a community website that allows people to centralize job opportunity information for employers to post and for those who need it to review. This will be a free service. I will host and provide the design and create the html. I have a programmer who can create almost any type of functionality you can imagine (he was a top IBM programmer for years). I can create simple forms to collect the data initially, but will need to push beyond that (create security, store information in a database, create search capapbilities and so on).
I will need help to create a viable website. I don’t see this as my website or my idea. I’m hoping that by starting this now we can create a real way of helping the people of new orleans in a significant way that can last for a long time and become more robust if it actually takes off.
If you have organizational skills, writing skills, or job placement experience, it would certainly be appreciated. Help from lawyers would also be appreciated.
Anyone who has ideas or wants to help in this, please let me know. You can reach me at studio@yellowhousedesign.com or 800-204-6756. This will be a non-religious site and will not be pushing anything other than helping people from New Orleans find jobs. I suspect this will become an even bigger issue in weeks and months to come.
Good job on getting vital information out there peeps!! I’m taking advatage of it, THANKS!
yhd: that sounds like a great idea. I’d like to help but I don’t believe I have any skills that would be of use.
I just read this on http://www.randi.org
People who have a room or house to offer the refugees
http://www.hurricanehousing.org
The red cross accepts frequent flyer miles.
it takes all of us to make this happen and I didn’t see Jesus o God on the front lines. JIM
Again as a Red Cross Disaster volunteer, and since you are always left out by not having a God to bless you…let me extend my sincere gratitude to all of you for donating. If the phones are busy, try the web, or just drop off a check or charge at your local chapter, designated National Disaster Relief. Offers of goods are logistically impossible to coordinate, unless you can ship truckloads at your own expense. Also, I understand that blood drawings are overwhelmed. The need for blood is always there, so if you cant get in this week or next, try again in 2 weeks or so.
Also, some are offering housing to people, a fantastic humanitarian act. Just realize, even one’s own in-laws can outstay their welcome very quickly (right Dave!). And all 50 (er47) states are creating plans to potentially accept “refugees”. If family, friends or strangers do relocate, the local Red Cross may provide assistance.
In Kansas City the O’Connor Law Firm and The Kansas City Metro. Bar Assn. have set up food and supplies depos around the city through Courts and other firms. 100% of funds are transferred to Red Cross and other non-sectarian relief. Food and clothing are transported by Mo Natl. Guard.
HOWEVER, FEMA is collecting donations for Pat Robertson’s “Operation Blessing” see, http://www.fema.gov/press/2005/katrinadonations.shtm
RUN from that group of thieves.
Contacting the Red Cross online is easy right now, about 10:43 PM Eastern. Even though I am losing my job no later than Dec 31, maybe earlier, and need to conserve cash, these folks need it more right now. I encourage everyone to give what they can, and more if they can do without something for a while to pay for their donation.
As much as I despise O’Really and Hamity on Fox news, I have to give kudos to Shep Smith and Geraldo Rivera for the on-ground reporting they are doing. They seem to be the only TV reporters there, that have a sense of outrage at what is going on. When I check CNN or MSNBC, the reporters there are so ‘professional’ you would think they were reporting about an ant colony.
CNBC is doing a great job of reporting on the economic impacts to the area and the rest of the country.
CSPAN has excellent coverage of press conferences and other long reports. (as usual)
Those 3 sources can give anyone a good idea of what is really going on down there, and what is needed in the way of help.
In addition, there are a lot of online sources still active there.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
boingboing has a lot of links listed as well:
http://boingboing.net/
Tom
I took the liberty of adding nogodblog to a site keeping track of donations from blogs, so if anyone from here makes a donation, please log it at http://www.truthlaidbear.com/addcontribution.php
if you have no objections to doing so
“Blair, Can we use your letter to send to our local newspapers? Thanks for filling us in on whats really happening. JIM”
Jim:
Please feel free to forward my letter. The more people that know the more likely they will pay attention and contribute to the Red Cross.
The best way to contribute to the Red Cross is to go online to http://www.redcross.org and do it from there – much faster.
Thank you everyone for your words of concern.
Blair
yellowhousedesign,
That is an excellent idea. I’m in the IT field myself, and can offer assistance.
I don’t know how much you will be relying on your IBM programmer, but I can also provide any required functionality. I can code in HTML, Java, and JavaScript on the client side, and on the server side VBScript, and ASP, for SQLServer databases, but much prefer PHP, and MYSQL databases. I can also recommend an excellent hosting company based in Florida, which may be sympathetic to this cause. They utilize PHP and MYSQL databases.
Please feel free to contact me if interested at jc_atheist@yahoo.com
KellyUSA (former Kelly AFB by Lackland AFB)has taken in about 25,000 refugees. A lot of us from Lackland have volunteered and donated food and money. If anyone lives near San Antonio, they need more volunteers as well as donations.
Wow. I am just completely blown away by the reactions and help people have so freely offered. I live in St Tammany Parish in Louisiana. While I’m not from New Orleans, and my house is still in one piece, many of my neighbors have not been so lucky. We don’t have electricity at our home. We don’t have running water. We don’t have jobs currently because the building was shut down-we don’t know how long it will be until it’s fully operable again. Granted, we will be able to work again-the building is in one piece, but how many people want to buy books following a natural disaster? (Maybe I’ll be surprised.) We’re staying at a house with 11 people in four rooms, sleeping on the floor. We have little money for food and shelter.
And we’re the lucky ones.
It makes me so angry that people are shoving religion down people’s throats at a time like this. I just finished reading an article that said army chaplains are offering prayers-not food, medicine, things that people actually need at the moment. (I believe this was addressed by the leader of American Atheists). I understand that people need faith to get them through this time. I wish I had faith. But what good is faith when you’re starving to death, dehydrating, watching friends, loved ones die, searching for those you care about… and all you’re offered is prayers? Medicine first, water second, food third, shelter fourth, … maybe then some prayers. I don’t mind that people are praying for us. It means that they’re thinking about us, and that they will probably help us reclaim our lives and some semblance of normalcy. But please, give us something more than just false gods.
I want to thank those of you from this blog who have offered their time, money, food, homes, and any sort of help-even if all you can offer is sympathy at this time. It means the world to us… I watch the news each and every day, and I grow sicker and sicker watching what’s going on in New Orleans, in Mississippi. Half of my family lived in the New Orleans area. The other half lived in Pass Christian and Kiln, Mississippi. They’re dropping army fare into the areas, and those people are miserable. Some of them can’t leave because of flooding. And there’s nothing I can do, because we don’t have much more.
Granted, our lives in St Tammany will return to normal much sooner than in some other areas. But for those who will not have that small comfort, we thank you.
Sorry for the long winded post. Thank you…
PF –
You shouldn’t apologize for such a long post. I’ve posted longer pieces of much less importance.
You and everyone else down there has my sympathies and the sympathies of most everyone in the world. I wish there was more I could do…giving money to charity is so impersonal.
I don’t think that the depth of this disaster has set in yet. PF – please know that you are not alone in your disgust of those who offer prayer and little else…nothing fails like prayer.
I am dismayed at our government’s response to this storm both before and after it struck. The best we can hope for is that the area will be rebuilt and the economy there will come back stronger than ever. We can also hope that those who are responsible for the botched effort will be held accountable.
May luck be with you.
FYI Kudos to our own Roosta, who won’t be posting for a while — he’s taking tome off work and had flown down to TX to help at the Astrodome. He did the same for 911.
THANKS KEN!
CENDANT CORPORATION is matching employee contributions up to $500,000.
Employees should go to the main corporate page for details.
In case you didn’t know, NOFish is a play on both the fish car thingies, and NO as in New Orleans. I have relocated temporarily to upstate New York, but I won’t be NYFish.
F..k LEO Club
I better do that too. digs around to find out how Hil lost so much weight
project management
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