citieshelping

"Here in Indianapolis, several wonderful things have happened. A privately owned company has offered assistance to a family. Shelter, food, clothing, and a job. They are willing to train the bread-winner in either the manufacturing of their product or in sales. The owner said on tv that if the family wanted to relocate permanently and stay with his company, that would be wonderful. If they decided to return to N O when it comes back to being, he would be happy for them and -- gee, they would have been trained for a job!! Also, one of our grocery stores is donating food and water and a call went out to the smaller aviation companies for transportation. One of them took it on -- flying down with supplies -- and returning filled with people!!! Our Mayor said we are going to adopt these people. There will be more flights. Just a few examples of what America can do when we set our minds to it! During and after the Depression and World War II, large numbers of people and families from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama moved to Indiana for jobs in the automobile industry." Shari

"On last night's news, there was a story about 14 people (5 adults, 9 children) who just arrived in Detroit in one SUV after their other 3 cars ran out of gas on the way up. It was a man originally from Detroit who ran an apartment building in the N.O. area. Everyone else were people living in the apartments. He brought them all up here, somehow let the local TV station know, and by the 11:00 news they had the clothing sizes of everyone posted on the website. The local school district had offered to register the children. A local hotel took them all in -- the first hotel to respond to the Detroit mayor's call for hotels to offer shelter to evacuees (ironically, the hotel is not in Detroit but in Sterling Heights, a suburb). I bet by the end of the weekend these people will have more donations than fit in their hotel room, being the first refugee family we know of in the area." Sheila

A town in Arkansas: "ready to roll"
A friend of mine from a town of 80,000 in Arkansas says that 4,000 refugees are headed their way. People in the city are a bit concerned about what that will mean for employment and schools in the area, but my friend says the city seems ready to roll with the punches." Sheila