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Yup, I posted both that link about the Red Cross activities in Alexandria -- and the article in its entirety -- earlier this evening.

A friend of mine mentioned on the phone that he was thinking of going to volunteer for the Red Cross, but I couldn't picture it. He's a laid-back retiree recovering from open-heart surgery. If he was told he'd have to commit to a certain shift, he'd probably say thanks but no thanks and find a different charity that was more flexible with its volunteers.

Same thing with mothers of school-age children. They might want to go down and pitch in for a few hours after the kids are gone, but they'd need to leave when school's over, so there's no way they could commit to an 8-hour shift. (I was about to say "go home and meet the school bus" but right now the school buses in many Louisiana parishes are all out-of-town being used for the relief effort, so it's more appropriate to say "pick up the kids after school," I guess.)

Me, I'm conducting my campaign online because I feel that I can do the most good by diverting people's awareness away from the generic major-charity pleas and bringing it directly toward Alexandria/Pineville where it's really needed. I've said this so many times that people on these threads are probably sick of hearing it, but the 10,000 families being sheltered in Rapides Parish will be in this area for a very long time, long after the media takes their cameras to the locations where the newest shelters are open. It's going to be extremely difficult to absorb all these people into our community in terms of finding room for 1,000+ new students and competing against the newly arrived adults for an already-limited supply of jobs and apartments.

We need help for this new makeshift community immediately! Every time I get an e-mail or a ping saying "I've cut and pasted those addresses you sent me into an e-mail and sent them to everyone on my list," then I know I'm doing something constructive.

Thanks for reposting the link!