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Providing Direct Support in Louisiana--Updated July 9, 2006
Sustaining Community
Donating Household Items and Clothes
Tucson Center
Donating Food and Cooking Supplies for FNB
Community Meetings for College Initiatives
Reaching Prescott College Alum
Support in Shreveport
Food Not Bombs
Prescott Donation Drive
From Kenny Cook
Environmental Issues and Next Steps in the Clean Up
Providing Direct Support in Louisiana
From Prescott College community members Joan Clingan and Frank Cardamone, who in September traveled to Louisiana to offer their service in a shelter (click here for information about providing direct support or to read journal entries of their work in Louisiana):
Now that we are back in Arizona, we have arranged some opportunities for people from Prescott College, the Prescott community, and other communities from among our family and friends, to connect directly with displaced families and individuals in Louisiana. We hope others will be inspired to take on the same kind of project with folks in Mississippi or Texas. We are currently making connections with people we met in the shelter in Baton Rouge, as well as others who are living in the FEMA trailer encampments, or are in the process of returning to New Orleans.
There are still thousands of people living in 200 square foot FEMA trailers in southern Louisiana and trying to rebuild their lives or settle in to the long wait until they can return to their home communities. We invite those of us who want to help, but question how best to do that, to consider organizing your community--your office, your neighborhood, your class, your program, your church, or your family--to sponsor a family in Louisiana and support them in specific, direct, and significant ways. The greatest aid we witnessed on our journey was the immediate and compassionate support of one individual or family to another--offers of food, supplies, bedding, and just general kindnesses.
We who are still living in our own safe and familiar communities can help those in need by providing gift cards so they can purchase household supplies and clothes (or clean air mattresses if they are still in the shelters) or networking support for finding jobs or long-range housing. We can make personal connections and offer support. We can send clothes in the right sizes. Anything we can imagine, we can do.
You can go here for contacts in New Orleans and Baker who can connect you directly with families to support and partner with. You can also contact us (Frank or Joan) for more information.
If you would like to make a tax deductible donation that we use for direct support you can still do that through Prescott College. Checks should be made payable to Prescott College and noted on the check "for Hurricane Relief." Send your checks to Judy Lewis, Development Office, Prescott College, 220 Grove Avenue, Prescott, AZ 86301.
Donations received through Prescott College will be used by us in one of the following ways: [1] we will make donations to the churches and organizations that are providing support in Louisiana to use in the process of transitioning residents into temporary or permanent housing; or [2] when we make our next service trip to Louisiana, we will assist folks who are rebuilding by providing building or household supplies, as we witness the need; or [3] if a service trip is not planned during the upcoming months, donations may be directed to one of the community groups or organization with which we have been working (see this list, for example).
NOTE: In the first phase of our service, we directly distributed all donations that we received in the following ways: [1] we purchased supplies for shelter residents in Louisiana that were specifically requested by them or that we saw were needed, including clothing, undergarments, shoes, over-the-counter or prescription medical necessities, toys, school supplies, and other miscellaneous supplies; [2] we covered the cost of getting the donated van from Prescott to its new family in Louisiana (including gas and some minor maintenance); and [3] we purchased some food and supplies for the Food Not Bombs kitchen on Desire Street in New Orleans. In the second phase of our service, we directly distributed all donations that we received in the following ways: [1] we provided gift cards to residents of public housing in New Orleans who are currently locked out of their homes; [2] we purchased bikes and supplies for use by the folks at Survivor's Village; and [3] we covered minimal travel costs to make the service trip.
100% of the money donated through the Prescott College Hurricane Relief account will be used as direct support for those displaced, including the direct costs of getting supplies to those in need; it will not be used for any overhead costs--this is a volunteer endeavor.
Sustaining Community
Many members of the Prescott College community, both in Prescott and in Tucson, have offered spaces in their homes for those displaced by the hurricane. Barbara Garvey, having worked in the past to help create a community in Portland, Maine for refugees from Cambodia, expressed the importance of offering not only a space for a single person or family, but a place where communities can come. The idea was generated at our community meeting that cities and towns might coordinate larger opportunities by being able to create a number of homes and jobs, and then offer those spaces to small communities--a neighborhood where several homes were lost, an extended family who now needs to relocate, or a new community formed by relationships forged in the shelters following the hurricane.
Those in the Prescott area who are interested in pursuing this idea or who have a home or job should contact Barbara Garvey or Joan Clingan. Barbara and Joan are coordinating this idea and efforts to realize this vision among the Prescott community, specifically with the Prescott City Council and other colleges. We can make Prescott, Arizona a place where a small community of folks wanting to relocate to the southwest can come as a new and in tact community. Please forward this idea to other communities that can do the same.
Donating Clothing and Household Items through Prescott College
The call for donations to be taken on the van to Louisiana brought forward far more items than we can take. What an amazing group of folks we are! We will continue to accept donations at the college, which will all be taken to either the Phoenix or Tucson shelters, or be given to families that relocate to Prescott. If you have donations of new or near-new items, you can take them to Sam Hill. Contact Frank Cardamone and he will make arrangements to meet you at Sam Hill to drop things off.
Tucson Center
Prescott College Tucson Center is accepting donations of sanitary supplies and clothing which will be delivered to Food Not Bombs on behalf of the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Donating Food and Cooking Supplies for Food Not Bombs through Prescott College
You can still donate those items requested by Food Not Bombs--25 and 50 pound bags of rice, beans, black-eyed peas, lentils, and any other large amounts of dry goods, pasta, or non-perishable food. We can also use propane stoves, kitchen equipment, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, and other personal items.
Folks from ADGP make regular trips to Tucson and will see that items are delivered to Tucson FNB, which will continue to make trips to Louisiana and Mississippi. If you have donations you can take them to Sam Hill. Contact Frank Cardamone and he will make arrangements to meet you at Sam Hill to drop things off.
Community Meetings for College Initiatives
Community meetings were held on Thursday, September 1 and Tuesday, September 6 at the Crossroads Center to generate ideas and sustain direct action support within our community. Many individuals are involved in collecting donations of money, food, cooking supplies, toiletries, clothing, and other items, which are being donated directly through agencies such as Food Not Bombs. Others are traveling with Food Not Bombs to deliver support and supplies. Kristine Preziosi and Anita Fernandez are creating care packages for kids to send along with those going off to the shelters. Specific opportunities for you to support these activities will be included on this page as they become available.
Reaching Prescott College Alum
Terri Harris, Director of Alum Affairs, has emailed all of the alum who live in the area. Terri has set up a bulletin board on the alum web page. MAP faculty have emailed current MAP students who live in the area. Offers for housing are being coordinated through this already.
Support in Shreveport
David Farmer, parent of MAP student and RDP instructor, John Farmer, is a minister in Shreveport. Rev. Farmer is working hard right now helping people who have been affected by the hurricane. Here is his email message to our community.
Food Not Bombs and Prescott College
Prescott College and Prescott community members Randall Amster and Paul Katan coordinated with Keith McHenry (ADP Student), Geoff Boyce (RDP alum), and other west coast food not bombers, and traveled Houston, Baton Rouge, and directly into New Orleans to support the disenfranchised victims of this disaster. Joan Clingan and Frank Cardamone, PC faculty and staff, supported their work in New Orleans when they were in Louisiana volunteering in a small shelter.
Food Not Bombs groups from across the country have come together in Houston, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans and set up regional kitchens to collect, prepare, and share food. Food Not Bombs has brought supporters and those who have been displaced together to participate in feeding each other. This may be one of the most therapeutic things we can do.
FNB estimate that there will be close to a million more homeless folks on the street for the next 6 months. Social services were ill equipped to support America's homeless population before this disaster. Please join Food Not Bombs volunteers in this extraordinary direct action. We are looking for money and other items to support this direct action. The bus they rode down has now remained as a mobile FNB kitchen.
There are hundreds of FNB folks in Louisiana and hundreds more on the way. Tucson FNB is committed to regular trips to transport volunteers and resources. The St. Pete FNB in Florida has the same commitment.
Thank you for your awareness and kind support! In Solidarity.
Prescott Donation Drive
To help Hurricane Katrina victims, two of our local community minded businesses are collecting clean new or nearly new items of clothing, blankets, monetary donations, and non-perishable items as well as other useful material and will arrange for its transport to the Gulf Coast states. Doctor Shawn Tyson of Hands on Healthcare at 720 N Montezuma St., Ste A and Tim Coury of Tim's Buick, Toyota, GMC & Hyundai, 3250 Willow Creek Rd have set up as drop off points for your contributions. Remember that anything will make a difference to those who have lost everything.
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From Kenny Cook
Joan and Frank, Hope you are traveling safely, and that KRA (our name for the minivan, the license plate) is holding up. I'm forwarding you an email I just got from Bret Lott, the editor for The Southern Review, which is at LSU in Baton Rouge, the primary refugee center for hurricane victims. Bret has arranged through LSU to allow people to send $8 for the most recent issue of The Southern Review (which is a beautiful issue) and 100% of the money will go to help Gulf Coast college and university students displaced by the hurricane. Bret is on the front lines, and this is an incredibly generous offer and an excellent way to make sure money goes directly to places that most need it.
Thanks and safe travels, Kenny
September 10, 2005
To the Community of Writers, Readers, Teachers, Students, Editors and
Anyone Else Within the Sound of This Email--
Bret Lott here, editor of The Southern Review on the campus of LSU in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana. I am writing to you and to everyone you can forward this
email to with an opportunity to help victims of the hurricane. Forgive this
rather long email, but it is important to the welfare of many hurricane
evacuees in our area -- please read this all the way through.
No doubt you know the sorrow and hardship that has been visited on
residents of our state because of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding caused
by the breach of the levee in New Orleans. No doubt you know as well of
the thousands of displaced persons who have lost everything because of the
evacuation of that city.
As a result of so many New Orleans area universities and colleges closing
down for who knows how long, LSU has taken on almost 2800 new students who
were displaced by losing their homes and their schools; in addition, many
students who were already enrolled at LSU have also suffered great losses.
These students have experienced hardships that few of us will ever know:
they have lost their homes, their personal belongings, their books, their
food -- everything, including, for many, the college or university at which
they were enrolled. To help meet their needs -- and these are IMMEDIATE and
GENUINE needs -- the LSU Foundation has set up Hurricane Katrina Relief
Fund.
Strangely and beautifully and sadly enough, the latest issue of The
Southern Review -- mailed to subscribers just week before last, right as
the hurricane was making way for the Gulf Coast -- has turned out to be a
very special issue for the artwork on the cover and that featured inside.
The artist, Billy Solitario, lives near GULFPORT (and I trust you have seen
the pictures of the devastation there); as of this writing, we have not
been able to contact him. The paintings themselves are of the Gulf Coast --
one of them is even titled "Spiral Cloud over Levee," another one titled
"Storm Over the Mississippi"; still others in the portfolio are of barrier
islands on the Gulf Coast -- places that don't even exist anymore. The
artwork was selected about a year ago, and the synchronicity of this is a
little too much to think about -- the issue, which went out just two weeks
ago, celebrates a coastland that is, suddenly, gone. Also, and again the
synchronicity of this is too much to behold, the lead poems in this issue
are by Peter Cooley, poet at now-closed Tulane University; we have heard
that he is safe in Houston at the time of this writing.
Here is where the community of folks to whom this email is addressed can
help (and please read the following instructions CAREFULLY as they are
being written this way so as to allow all of us to help each other
legally!).
1 -- YOU SEND THE SOUTHERN REVIEW A CHECK FOR $8 (EIGHT DOLLARS) MADE OUT
TO "LSU FOUNDATION," AND WRITE ON THE MEMO LINE "HURRICANE STUDENT RELIEF
FUND." MAIL THAT CHECK TO:
THE SOUTHERN REVIEW
OLD PRESIDENT'S HOUSE
LSU
BATON ROUGE LA 70803
PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR NAME AND MAILING ADDRESS WHEN SENDING THE CHECK.
Or
CALL THE SOUTHERN REVIEW AT 225-578-5108 or 225-578-5041 AND GIVE US YOUR
VISA NUMBER AND NAME AND ADDRESS
2 -- I SEND YOU A FREE COPY OF THIS ISSUE OF THE SOUTHERN REVIEW.
Please note that these two actions -- your donation, our sending you a free
copy -- are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE (does anyone out there recognize yet the
legal hoops I am having to jump through in order simply to help students in
dire need of help? Sheesh!). Please note as well that it just so happens
that the cover price for an issue of The Southern Review is $8 (eight
dollars), BUT YOU ARE FREE TO DONATE AS MUCH AS YOU WISH.
Order as many as you want -- use them as gifts with the good knowledge that
because of your generosity help is going to students in need; use them in
your classes as a means to help your students rally to the aid of their
comrades here at LSU; give them to anyone and everyone you know. And please
forward this email to as many people as you know so that they might
also be able to contribute to a worthy fund, and to enjoy the issue itself.
But finally, please note that NOT A SINGLE PENNY WILL COME EVEN REMOTELY
CLOSE TO THE COFFERS OF THE SOUTHERN REVIEW; THIS IS SOLELY AN EFFORT TO
GET MONEY TO STUDENTS IN NEED AND TO CELEBRATE THROUGH THE PAGES OF THE
SOUTHERN REVIEW THE BEAUTY OF A COAST THAT HAS LARGELY BEEN LOST.
I know that to many out there this may sound like some sort of mercenary
effort to advertise our journal and somehow to make money through the loss
of others. Indeed, we will in fact be losing money in all this.
But you have my word -- Bret Lott -- that we will in no way profit from
these mutually exclusive actions.
I know the outpouring will be a great one, and please know that we here at
The Southern Review are prepared to handle the deluge of good will you are
already sending our way. Thank you for reading all the way through this
email, and thank you as well for what you have already done for the
hurricane relief efforts.
Sincerely, and with thanks to all --
Bret Lott
Editor and Director
The Southern Review
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Environmental Issues and Next Steps in the Clean Up
From Maya Jones, MAP Student
Hi everyone,
I understand our government is planning to spray
bleach over the stagnant waters in New Orleans in
order to stop the spread of infectious disease. Bleach
is am extremely destructive substance, causing all
kinds of havoc in our environment.
Jon Mackey, founder of Whole Foods, is spearheading
the drive to use "Effective Microorganisms" (EM), a
more healthy alternative to solving the problem. EM is
relatively new to the US, although it is being used in
over 120 countries around the world and has been in
use for over 25 years. EM was used extensively
throughout the Tsunami Wave Disaster. The World Health
Organization had originally warned that more deaths
would occur from the spread of pathogen diseases than
occurred from the Tsunami Waves. The deaths from the
pathogen diseases never happened.
EM was also used by the German government after the
flood disasters a couple of years ago that resulted in
over $20 Billion in damage. Also, EM has been
successful in cleaning up the inland seas of Japan.
Whole Foods has been very generous in offering to
purchase and transport the EM to New Orleans. The
flooded area will take at least six more weeks to pump
and drain. However, in about a week, the stagnant
waters combined with sewage, poisons, and other
contamination sources in New Orleans will begin
breeding pathogen bacteria that will begin spreading
diseases throughout the region. The CDC (Center for
Disease Control) in Atlanta is aware of this, but is
not publicizing it to the media.
The EM website is: www.emamerica.com. They can be contacted at:1-866-369-3678.
Authorization from FEMA and federal relief agencies is
needed to move forward. Please contact your
representatives and senators, asking them to get FEMA
to authorize the application of EM as soon as
possible! Every day, every hour, every minute is
crucial!
If you need the contact information for your senator
or representative, visit www.house.gov or
www.senate.gov.
If you are in Arizona, Senator Kyl is 202-224-4521;
Senator McCain is 202-224-2235; Rep. Hayworth is
202-225-2190.
Thanks for taking time to do this.
Maya
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Back to Prescott College Home Page
This page was prepared by Prescott College faculty member, Joan Clingan. Suggestions for additions or corrections are welcomed. Please check back as this page will be updated daily for as long as it is useful to do so.
Last updated July 9, 2006.
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