Can You Trust Me? Help Hurricane Katrina Refugees

Can you trust me?

I have been trying to think of how to help the hurricane victims.

People are flowing into our area, and apparently our counties and cities never considered this. For a reason I cannot understand, the Mobile Civic Center, home to many evacuees, closed its doors at 10am this morning and told the evacuees that they had to leave. There are excuses, such as that the parked cars around the Civic Center cause logistical problems for bringing food and ice to that area. That is just an excuse. It could be so easily solved. A woman who was told to leave the Civic Center said, "Where will I go? I have nowhere to go." She sobbed into the camera, pleading for information about her 8-year-old son who was left in New Orleans with his father. She kept saying, "I don't have anywhere to go, but I don't care. Just bring me my baby. I want my baby." Even the male news reporter had to choke up at that one. A man who had to leave the Mobile Civic Center, said, "We haven't had a meal in 2 days. We are out of gas money. How are we supposed to pay for gas? Where do we go, without a home?"

The Pensacola Civic Center is housing many evacuees, but they say that they will close their doors by this weekend. Events have been scheduled, and the Civic Center wants the evacuees out, so they can prepare.

We have evacuees lining our roads and waiting under our overpasses. They are in our store parking lots, waiting. And waiting. They will wait for a long time to come. it is unbearably hot here, 95 degrees with high humidity today. There is a shortage of free food, water, and ice.

FEMA only brought 2 trucks of water and ice to Daphne, Alabama today ("home" to many evacuees, on I-10, across Mobile Bay). By 9:40am, all of the ice and water was gone. Food will finally come today to hard-hit Mobile County, two days after the storm, but it is limited, and will come only to specific locations. When the aid comes, the lines to receive aid are literally miles and miles long. How are the refugees supposed to wait hours in their car, using up precious gas, for food and water? How are the refugees supposed to even find the aid in an unfamiliar town?

Keep in mind that many of the refugees are America's poorest. They somehow managed to find a car to get this far, but with gas prices so high, they can no longer pay for gas to go on down the road. They have no money for fast food, even when our restaurants are open. They only have the clothes that they brought with themselves, in the rush to leave their homes (we did not have more than two days warning with this storm). Many of these people, our poor, do not have credit cards to max out. They not only have no jobs now, but they were living paycheck-to-paycheck, so they have no money in the near future.

Tim and I have had many financial blows in our 13 years together. We have weathered many storms, had our electricity go out many times, lost possessions over and over. We know what it's like to be poor.

Do you know what it's like to be poor?

I am in a unique position to help, and I can do so, if you can trust me. We do not have electricity or phone at our house, we have four little ones, and Tim lost his job due to the hurricane (he worked in Gulf Shores, Alabama, which is still under floods), so the only way that we can help is with your assistance. But it may be a blessing to not be tied down to a job. We can, with your partnership, drive around and help these refugees in our area.

If you want to help, I'm setting up a PayPal donate account (click on the "Donate" button, above). I promise you that you can trust me. I will get your money into the very hands of the victims. I will ask the evacuees where they are from, and I will make sure they need help. And I will put your money in their hands and tell them it is from you. I'll blog their stories back to you. I will keep track, and return any money that is not used for the victims. I will stop accepting money as soon as there are no more victims to help. I will email you, if you'd like, to let you know what I did with your specific money.

If your children want to give, I will hand their money to my 10-year-old and 8-year-old to hand out to victims. We can email your children and let them know where the money went.

I will help the people who have evacuated to Pensacola, Florida right now. As soon as I can return home (we do not yet have electricity or phone at home), I will help the evacuees in Baldwin County, Alabama, and in Mobile County, Alabama, along Interstate 10, where thousands have come. I will go to the gas stations, where the refugees are trying to buy gas. Many of them are sleeping at the gas stations. I will go to the Red Cross shelters and find out who may need financial help to travel.

Your money will not buy these people lodging. There is no lodging available. But your money will buy them food. Our stores are opening, more each day. Your money will buy gas for them so they can return home, or so that they can continue to move down the road. Some of the evacuees want to go to see family far away, in Michigan or Indiana, or North Carolina. Your money will get them into the arms of loved ones.

Please don't feel obligated. But if you want to help, click on the donation button above. It will go to Treasures Planted, which is my old PayPal account I used to use when I had a business website. I will give you an accounting of your money, but please be patient. We will be traveling throughout the area and may not be able to email you quickly.

Please email me at seaborgs@Bellsouth.net, if you have any questions, or post a comment here for a quicker response.

by Lori Seaborg