{news} Fw: USGP-INT A report from an IC member at a shelter in Baton Rouge

[Justine McCabe]

USGP-INT A report from an IC member/former GP VP candidate Pat Lamrche at a 
shelter in Baton Rouge


> http://www.timesrecord.com/website/main.nsf/news.nsf/0/
> 0DE64C25835773C40525708200589966?Opendocument
>
>
> Disaster volunteers respond to a region in shambles
>
> news at TimesRecord.Com
>
> 09/20/2005
>
> Katrina Relief - By Pat Lamarche, Times Record Contributor
>
> BATON ROUGE, La. - Tension is building in the shelter. The news that a new
> hurricane may strike New Orleans and the Louisiana coast has the Red Cross
> disaster services leadership here at the Riverside shelter bracing for the
> worst.
>
> More evacuees, more flooding, more chaos, will cause this Baton Rouge
> Stadium, which is already Louisiana's largest hurricane shelter, to bulge
> with displaced residents.
>
>
> Editor's Note: Lamarche of Yarmouth [ME] left for Louisiana on Saturday as
> part of an American Red Cross volunteer hurricane relief crew. Her reports
> on that effort will be published daily in The Times Record.
> While the volunteers worry about the situation overwhelming the structure,
> the residents agonize about not going home. No matter how harsh the 
> reality,
> the people of New Orleans just want to go home.
>
> To those of us who have moved around, gone to school or the military, this
> allegiance to a place might not make sense, especially with the threat of
> another disaster looming.
>
> Maybe you have to live in Louisiana to understand.
>
> According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 80 percent of Louisiana residents 
> have
> never left the state, the highest percentage in the nation. More than half
> the people in this state are at least a fourth-generation Louisianan. They
> eat red beans and rice and turkey necks and gravy.
>
> Volunteer cooks tried preparing eggplant parmesan Monday; thinking it 
> would
> be a nice change from the normal, ordinary cuisine.
>
> But normal is exactly what these folks miss. The residents instantly
> nicknamed it succotash parmesan - and lightheartedly requested that it not
> be made again.
>
> One affluent New Orleans resident, who stopped by the shelter to see if
> anyone she knew was there, stared blankly at me when I asked her if they
> rebuilt New Orleans, would she go back?
>
> She responded, wide-eyed, "Who wouldn't want to go home?"
>
> Because of this, our shelter seems filled with exact opposites. The
> residents, the new citizens of the Riverside sub-city of New Orleans, 
> remain
> physically tied to their families, their neighborhoods, their customs and
> their churches. It's almost like they have invisible tendons that stretch
> from their arms and legs binding them to their surroundings.
>
> Whole extended families - moms, dads, cousins, grandparents, best -friends
> all lived in the same small quarter of the city and the flood has ripped
> them apart. Their euphemistic tendons are stretched too far and the pain 
> of
> them breaking is palpable.
>
> At the other extreme are the Red Cross Disaster Services Volunteers. While
> they, too, love their families, they jump at a moment's notice and travel
> wherever the Red Cross sends them. They thrive in stressful situations, in
> unfamiliar settings, with only strangers for support. They are 
> adventurers.
> The pleasure they feel while helping those less fortunate is palpable as
> well.
>
> Without the help of any scientific studies, although I looked for 
> statistics
> and could not find them, I have compiled my own anecdotal profile of the 
> Red
> Cross "disaster volunteer." They are young, middle aged and old. Many are
> retired, many still work. Some own their own businesses with family 
> members
> and partners holding down the fort while they're gone.
>
> A surprising number of the folks I have met are unemployed. Many have
> traveled here with the blessing of their employer and continue getting 
> paid
> while they're gone.
>
> Allow me introduce you to a few of those folks.
>
> The Riverside shelter makes 27,000 meals twice a day. They feed all the
> folks in the nearby shelters as well as everyone here at Riverside. When 
> the
> Louisianans in the shelter eat their lunch, they can't imagine the folks
> that cooked it for them. How could they?
>
> After all, only 20 percent of them have been out of state, and far fewer
> have ever been to Lancaster, Pa. Today, in that small city nestled in 
> Amish
> country, all the high school students will sit eating bagged lunches 
> because
> their principal sent the school cooking staff to rescue the hungry.
>
> They arrived in Baton Rouge two days ago. They aren't just the Lancaster
> lunch ladies any more; they are now American Red Cross volunteers helping 
> to
> cook.
>
> Imagine, 11 women in a travel trailer driving more than 20 hours to cook 
> 12
> hours a day for total strangers. That's the American Red Cross.
>
> But next time, hold the succotash parmesan please.
>
> More information about volunteering as a Red Cross Disaster Relief Worker 
> is
> available at www.redcross.org.
>
>
> Julia Willebrand
> USGP International Committee Co-chair
> FPVA Co-president
>
> 212 877-5088--