Breakfast at Tall Timbers
The United Pentecostal Campground Team
The United Pentecostal Campground
Louisiana, Katrina & the Red Cross, Page 4
Wednesday, September 28,
2005
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Today we are going to start giving out gift cards. The Central Louisiana Chapter of the Red Cross has used a number of methods to get money to the clients (victims) of Hurricane Katrina. The gift cards are preloaded with the amounts for households ranging from 1 - 5 members and placed in an envelope with the shelter name & the head of household's name on the front. We have a cover sheet for those receiving cards to sign after their name. We started at shelter #117 - The United Pentecostal Campground. They have a mix of clients staying in RVs & barracks. As the clients came up to the tables, they gave us one of us their ID card, it was read to the group, & we looked for their envelope. Not a lot of success - by the end of the day we had only given out 5 out of 400 cards. Part of the problem is many of the evacuees have moved back to their homes or left to live with friends or relatives. Did have one interesting thing happen. After reading off hundreds of card names, one 90 year old handed in his card. Name? "Handicapped" - a bit unusual, but his name was called out - no card. Checked first name - "Plackard"! Strange combination, but still couldn't find the card. He mentioned he had another card which turned out to be his real ID card. Seems Louisiana has an ID like card to identify the handicapped that has the words "Handicapped Plackard" where the name is on a standard ID card! You really had to be there to appreciate all of us laughing almost to tears, but it broke the tension of not being able to find as many cards as we hoped.
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Breakfast at Tall Timbers |
The United Pentecostal Campground Team |
The United Pentecostal Campground |
We worked until about 6:00 & headed home. One car load went to Applebees for dinner, but it looked like a long wait so some of us hit a Burger King. Bad choice on my part - no drinks, limited menu & much too old salads at Burger King & those that stayed at Applebees had their meals in less than a half an hour. After that it was back to Tall Timbers.