Local relief-supply donations just keep coming

09/10/2005

Darlene Prois, Tim Harlow and Anthony Lonetree,
Star Tribune
September 10, 2005

Minnesotans are so eager to open their wallets, their homes—even their instrument cases—to Hurricane Katrina survivors that organizers of local relief efforts have struggled to keep up with their generosity.

“We’re getting such a phenomenal response that we’re asking for people’s understanding that it takes some physical time to get back to them,” said Chris Burns, communications manager for the St. Paul chapter of the American Red Cross.

Red Cross volunteers are trying to respond within 24 hours, but offers to help are sometimes exceeding the office’s voice mailbox capabilities. And the number of calls has been increasing as the days go on.

Many other groups and individuals, from animal humane societies to Minneapolis brass band musicians, have been finding ways to offer relief on their own.

Tonight the ReBirth Brass Band, described as one of the best contemporary New Orleans ensembles still working in the vintage marching-band style, is playing the Cabooze Bar in Minneapolis, thanks in part to the contributions of a bass drum and snare drum sent to the group by a local brass band musician, Erik Jacobson.

Jacobson, who has traveled to New Orleans often to hang with and learn from the brass-band musicians there, said that many of the city’s musicians are scattered throughout the South without their instruments, prompting him to begin rounding up horns and drums to send so that they can tour and make money.

Next week, he said, he plans to ship a sousaphone, three trombones, two trumpets, a tenor saxophone, a bass drum and snare drum to the Stooges Brass Band, which has settled temporarily outside Atlanta and is scheduled to perform in Boston Sept. 26—and, Jacobson hopes, the Twin Cities soon afterward, he said.

“This is just a tiny way for us to repay our debt to them,” said Jacobson, whose efforts continue.

Elsewhere locally:

• The Minnesota Coalition to Aid Hurricane Katrina Survivors has already sent a truck and bus caravan with basic food and daily supplies to shelters in Houston and Dallas. Two more 26-foot rental trucks were scheduled to head south late Thursday or Friday. More trucks are available if qualified drivers can be found, according to organizers.

“I’m extremely pleased with the generosity of the people of Minnesota,” said Michelle Gross, a Minneapolis health-care worker with New Orleans relatives who cofounded the coalition.

With one trip to the disaster area completed, the group has refined its ideas of what’s needed. Some things are obvious: sturdy new clothing and footwear, toiletries, paper plates, building supplies. Other needs are less obvious, but just as useful: Gross spent hours Thursday locating as many bicycles as she could.

“They need transportation,” she said. “And without gas, cars are of no use.”

Organizers said tarps, canopies and rope also are needed to give Gulf Coast residents temporary shelter from sun and rain, and said relief workers are short of tools to begin reconstruction efforts. Next week, Woodbury Lutheran Church hopes to send a truckload of supplies, and 20 volunteers, to Ocean Springs, Miss., having decided earlier this week to adopt the town as part of a long-term relief effort.

There, much of the early cleanup has been devoted to tearing out wallboard, creating the need for utility knives, crowbars and heavy work gloves, said Maria Engen, a Woodbury Lutheran member who was raised in New Orleans and whose aunt died in the hurricane flooding.

Later, it’s hoped that some of the church’s families can help with rebuilding efforts during next year’s spring break.

• Knowing that thousands and thousands of animals require “pooper scoopers by the zillions,” a group of area animal humane societies is taking up collections of animal care products ranging from leashes to food to litter, said Karin Winegar, public relations director for the Animal Humane Society.

• Another group, the Caravan of Caring Minnesotans, hopes to head to Pearl River, Miss., next week with water, building materials, clothing, household supplies, food, monetary donations and even Bibles.

The group is led by Adolfo Cardona, owner and publisher of Latino Midwest News, and attorney Jim Cohen, St. Mary’s University professors, social activists and businessmen.

The two coordinated their relief mission with the American Red Cross and the Nazarene Compassionate Ministries.

Distribution woes

But sometimes the best intentions come up against the uncertainties of a disaster area.

Mark Peregory and Jeff Wirth, who operate the Grand Rios Resort in Brooklyn Park, have a semitrailer truck loaded with more than $50,000 worth of supples for victims of Hurricane Katrina, but finding someplace to take the goods, including bottled water, toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap, clothing and pillows, proved more difficult than collecting it in the first place.

The initial plan was to take the items to a distribution center in Gulfport, Miss., but Peregory said Mississippi state police later advised against driving into the area, citing safety concerns. So Peregory and Wirth went with Plan B: Take the truck to Camp Ripley, near Little Falls, Minn., which had been expecting up to 3,000 evacuees. Federal officials now expect to airlift about 300 to Minnesota early next week.

But camp officials weren’t equipped to handle direct donations, and United Way officials suggested delivering the goods to the agency’s warehouse in nearby Brainerd.

On Friday, the truck remained in the Twin Cities as the men sought an option that would get the material directly to Katrina victims.