Rescue Came From the Grass Roots:The People Not FEMA Saved Themselves

[buzzsaw_23]

"We kept expecting to see the National Guard, the government, the Red Cross, somebody to do something.  The idea that our leaders would allow people to fend for themselves two, three, five days with no food, water, medicine or help from outside – we just couldn't get our minds around it. 

"People were dying by the hundreds in New Orleans, and more folks we knew in Mississippi, in Alabama were hurt, missing and homeless or hungry.  You've got two choices when you see something like that.  Choice one is to feel defeated.  Choice two is to be pro-active and do something about it.  There were about six of us in my living room at that moment, all movement vets.  We called around to see what we could make happen ourselves.

"The first folks to send a couple of vans of food and supplies was TOPS, The Ordinary


Peoples Society, a prison ministry in Dothan AL founded and staffed by ex-offenders.  They organized food from a food bank, pooled their money to get additional goods and moved it to Mobile where they connected with a second organization of formerly incarcerated brothers down there to distribute it while they went back to Dothan for more.  That's why we tell everybody now that it was felons who were the first to feed, the first to respond to need, the first to get up and do something.  They didn’t wait for permission or for a contract.  That’s real leadership.”

<snip>

The former prisoners found small and medium sized black churches in the affected area who also hadn't been contacted by the Red Cross or any government agency but who'd mobilized their own members to begin feeding their neighborhoods.  The ex-offenders began sharing their supplies, their contacts and their information about unmet needs with these community partners.  By the second food and water trip south, the former prisoners were bringing families out of flooded and devastated areas back to safety and temporary housing, and soon the ex-felons were driving in shifts with vans moving both ways around the clock. 

http://www.blackcommentator.com/151/151_dixon_katrina.html

[GetTheRightVote]

1. Yes, it was the ordinary people who run to help & were the heros of Katrin

Katrina. Katrinz either brought out the worst or the best in people. I drove my pickup truck from DC to NO to help because I could not have lived with myself if I did not do it but the stories and the people who were out there helping was totally amazing. Though my heart bled that day my soul learned that there were angels among us as well. So may God favor those angels and forgive the sinners who complained while others suffered in ways that many can not even image. God help them all.

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