Residents continue to donate time and money to help the victims
of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast region, several have already
visited the devastated area and many more are working locally to
raise money.
Hollister – Residents continue to donate time and money to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast region, several have already visited the devastated area and many more are working locally to raise money.
Hollister resident and National Guardsman John Lafaver feels like he’s making a difference in the devastated region. Lafaver was deployed to New Orleans on Sept. 1 with 870th Military Police Company. He and his fellow MPs spent their first few days securing Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans and getting evacuees through security checkpoints and onto their flights. Then the company focused their efforts on search and rescue.
“We used helicopters and took boats through the flooded streets,” said Lafaver, who was reached by phone Monday. “So many people’s houses and homes were destroyed by the flood waters, but it felt good that we were helping people.”
After several days of search and rescue operations through the city’s foul smelling streets, the company returned to the airport, Lafaver said.
“The only people that are still out there are the ones who don’t want to leave,” he said.
Former Hollister Mayor Tony Bruscia, a local business owner, recently returned from New Orleans, where he volunteered his time to assist hurricane victims with the Red Cross. Bruscia drove an emergency response vehicle to a staging area in the region last week and then spent six days working in a Baton Rouge shelter for people who had lost their homes. Bruscia spent most of his time working with children.
“I became the activity director at the shelter,” he said. “And we did stuff the Red Cross never does, because this disaster is so different than anything we have dealt with before.”
Bruscia spent his time finding activities for the displaced children because many of them had nothing to do. He contacted local businesses in the area and was able to get Ping-Pong, air hockey and pool tables donated to the shelter to occupy the kids during the long days. Bruscia also worked with others to help set up a preschool and daycare facility as well as make-shift schools for older children.
“It was so rewarding because I really got to make a difference with the kids,” Bruscia said.
The 5,000 shelter inhabitants sleep on cots or airbeds on the floor and have very little privacy and quiet, he said.
“The hardest part is to see what these people are dealing with,” he said. “It’s not something I’d want to do for any length of time.”
Linda Roma, a Morgan Hill resident who works for the San Benito County Sheriff’s Department, also left for the Gulf Coast Saturday. After flying to Houston, the Red Cross’ dispatch area, Roma was scheduled to be briefed with other volunteers before being assigned a location for her two-week deployment.
She will not know until she gets to Houston where she is needed. She’s not even sure exactly what she’ll be doing when she gets there.
“I’m trained in search and rescue, but that’s mostly over now,” Roma said. “I imagine I’ll be cooking mass quantities of food, or serving mass quantities of food. And of course, listening. That’s important, too.”
Here in Hollister, San Benito High School students are working to raise money and collect food for hurricane victims, Associated Student Body Spokeswoman Vanessa Buelna said Monday. Students raised more than $2,000 in donations last Friday at a special Hurricane Katrina Dance, she said.
“We’re doing all we can to support the people who need us over there,” Buelna said.
Students have also collected more than 1,600 bags of canned food to send to the region, and Buelna said the ASB is working to plan additional fundraisers. Several car washes have been planned and a specific high school club will be established to organize the school’s efforts
The Hurricane Katrina Club is looking to adopt students from the Gulf Coast who have lost their school as a result of the flood waters. Buelna said no definitive plans have been made yet, but students will continue their efforts.
“Students know that the hurricane had a big effect on the people there,” she said. “And (students) are willing to help out.”
Brett Rowland covers education for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or br******@fr***********.com.
