Good People: Hurricane Katrina Edition
It occurred to me this morning that it's been WAY too long since I revisited this part of my little virtual rumbleseat.
It is so easy to get caught up in all the negativity surrounding Hurricane Katrina, and all the things that went wrong with the efforts to save the population of New Orleans....and forget all about those times when good things are done by good people, regardless of the result.
So I did a little looking around...and found out about a lot of people, from all walks of life and every kind of belief, who don't have time to point fingers and blame their neighbors and leaders for their troubles, because they're too busy giving of themselves and their abilities to lend a hand to total strangers who desperately need it.
You'd be surprised just how easy they were to find, too, with just a little effort.
Here are just a handful of them.
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Katrina's Angels, a 501c non-profit organization licensed in Florida and founded by Tony Coolidge of ATAYAL, a group normally dedicated to the promotion and education of the culture and people of Taiwan. Tony was driven to suspend his normal efforts to help folks from the Gulf Coast get resettled and re-employed.
The above web site was designed by Collin Yeadon, head of the Yeadon Group, who is the Katrina's Angels Technology Director and donates his time and talents to this project.
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A man named John, who had an old military buddy from the Air Force that he couldn't get hold of, and so decided to truck on down in his own deuce-and-a-half to see what was what, and lend a hand to others in the process....
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Jim Lodoen, an attorney from Minneapolis, who was originally going down just to see to his mother, who was ill. And, since he would be staying at a Holiday Inn which was being used as a shelter for displaced families, he decided that he might treat a few people to a shopping trip, or maybe a nice dinner at a restaurant while he was there....
-----------------------------
Several members of KVR Audio, an online community and forum dedicated to electronic music and computerized instrumentation, got together on a whim to create a 2-disc CD of music, with 100% of the proceeds to be split between the Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity.
The "KVR Audio" link above is to the last page of the forum thread which was set up so that participating musicians could download tracks for submission to the project, as well as for general commo related to the project. This was actually started back on Sept. 2, and at this writing the thread is 106 pages long (last post made Sept. 21). I provided this link to show how much effort was put into this. Feel free to browse as you will.
----------------------------
Some slightly more well-known angels:
Shane Helms, better known as the WWE professional wrestler "Hurricane"
Trenyce, from 'American Idol 2'
A listing of local community projects headed up by the teams of the NBA and WNBA professional basketball leagues
Harry Connick, Jr.
Bill Cosby, Wynton Marsalis, and the jazz community at Lincoln Center
Steven Spielberg
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That's just to scratch the surface. I don't have nearly the kind of time to sink my teeth into this the way I would like to, but I think you get the idea.
With all the blaming going on, it's good to remember that there are a lot of good people out there who are driven by the need to reach out and help their neighbors when it's needed.
---Stander
It is so easy to get caught up in all the negativity surrounding Hurricane Katrina, and all the things that went wrong with the efforts to save the population of New Orleans....and forget all about those times when good things are done by good people, regardless of the result.
So I did a little looking around...and found out about a lot of people, from all walks of life and every kind of belief, who don't have time to point fingers and blame their neighbors and leaders for their troubles, because they're too busy giving of themselves and their abilities to lend a hand to total strangers who desperately need it.
You'd be surprised just how easy they were to find, too, with just a little effort.
Here are just a handful of them.
-----------------------------
Katrina's Angels, a 501c non-profit organization licensed in Florida and founded by Tony Coolidge of ATAYAL, a group normally dedicated to the promotion and education of the culture and people of Taiwan. Tony was driven to suspend his normal efforts to help folks from the Gulf Coast get resettled and re-employed.
The above web site was designed by Collin Yeadon, head of the Yeadon Group, who is the Katrina's Angels Technology Director and donates his time and talents to this project.
-----------------------------
A man named John, who had an old military buddy from the Air Force that he couldn't get hold of, and so decided to truck on down in his own deuce-and-a-half to see what was what, and lend a hand to others in the process....
-----------------------------
Jim Lodoen, an attorney from Minneapolis, who was originally going down just to see to his mother, who was ill. And, since he would be staying at a Holiday Inn which was being used as a shelter for displaced families, he decided that he might treat a few people to a shopping trip, or maybe a nice dinner at a restaurant while he was there....
-----------------------------
Several members of KVR Audio, an online community and forum dedicated to electronic music and computerized instrumentation, got together on a whim to create a 2-disc CD of music, with 100% of the proceeds to be split between the Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity.
The "KVR Audio" link above is to the last page of the forum thread which was set up so that participating musicians could download tracks for submission to the project, as well as for general commo related to the project. This was actually started back on Sept. 2, and at this writing the thread is 106 pages long (last post made Sept. 21). I provided this link to show how much effort was put into this. Feel free to browse as you will.
----------------------------
Some slightly more well-known angels:
Shane Helms, better known as the WWE professional wrestler "Hurricane"
Trenyce, from 'American Idol 2'
A listing of local community projects headed up by the teams of the NBA and WNBA professional basketball leagues
Harry Connick, Jr.
Bill Cosby, Wynton Marsalis, and the jazz community at Lincoln Center
Steven Spielberg
---------------------------
That's just to scratch the surface. I don't have nearly the kind of time to sink my teeth into this the way I would like to, but I think you get the idea.
With all the blaming going on, it's good to remember that there are a lot of good people out there who are driven by the need to reach out and help their neighbors when it's needed.
---Stander
posted by Stander | 8:00 AM
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