In a previous
diary I passed along the story of Lisa & Mari, a mother/daughter team involved in relief efforts for the Katrina-damaged community of Waveland, MS.
With the help of a local religious group and some dedicated Rainbows, the New Waveland Cafe & Relief Center was created.
Please make the jump for an update.
The family has returned to their home in Colorado, but is still gathering supplies & volunteers for another trip to Waveland to ensure that vital help continues to be delivered.
Lisa's latest email is as follows:
'Hi all,
Please check out this website with great photos of our relief operation and the hurricane devastation.
http://newwavelandcafe.blogspot.com/
The camp has very temporarily shut down to prepare for Rita, but will re-open immediately. We are sending two more vanloads of supplies and volunteers down from
Colorado this Monday. Anyone wanting to donate money can do so through PayPal, just drop me an email or call & I will tell you how. We need $ for gas and everything beyond that will go directly to buying bulk food for the cafe and supplies for the survivors.
Most of all the camp needs volunteers now as there is so much work to do. The cafe has been serving thousands of meals a day, and truckloads of supplies need to be organized. Come if you can!
Many thanks & blessings,
Lisa'
What seems most vitally important to me about the Waveland efforts -- beyond the fact that the relief effort itself is successfully addressing a still-suffering community -- is that it seems an exceptionally positive spot in a darkening landscape. What's occurred is the vital, functional meeting of many, very different types of people. The differences are so vast that we'd generally assume there's nothing close to a joint capacity for optimal, cooperative function in any type of effort -- let alone an effort to mend the very threads of life for a devastated population.
What's occurred in Waveland is very possibly a crucial part of the model for the healing of a broken society -- which is what the current GOP leadership & its enablers seem absolutely hell-bent on providing us.