Community Kindness in the Midst of Disaster Madness

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Friends: I am writing for another venue, but feel like I would neglect you if I don't include this here.

Please let me know if you would rather not continue to get these blogs and for goodness sakes, feel free to not read them!
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I grew up and live, yet again, in a southeast Texas gulf coast area that we lovingly call the 'Golden Triangle'.

The 'Golden' has to be because of the hearts of gold of our citizens.

Whenever there is a need or call to help, this area is more than ready to respond.

In 2005 when Katrina devastated so many, our area gladly took in evacuees in churches, shelters and individuals' homes. Donations were flowing out of here. Little did we know that less than a month later Hurricane Rita would be upon us and tear us up. We simply helped each other to recover.

Three years later, and all the troubled areas in other states in between that we helped since, we were once again severely damaged by Hurricane Ike, as were other areas.

Communities within our Golden Triangle are numerous and not all incorporated or large enough to gain attention or even a dot on a map, but we exist nonetheless.

Pictures and stories of the devastation can be perused through any of the local online media sources. I will list a few at the end of this writing.

Today there is a food drive for the Southeast Texas Food Bank hosted by KBMT TV (an ABC associate) Channel 12, Beaumont, Texas. This drive is at the station's location on I-10 in Beaumont from 6 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. today.

Many volunteers are involved in this effort and much media coverage is out there today and on the air waves.

There has been a steady stream of donations when I've listened in and the interviews with these drive by donors are telling their stories as well: some had damage, some only a little, some had family members that lost everything, yet all brought donations.

Such an area !

Another effort to provide assistance and encouragement will take place this Sunday, October 5th. This effort is being called Mid County Kindness. Absolutely EVERYONE is going to gather for this.

Expectation for this will be that 10,000 locals will go into the community of Bridge City to work, feed people, haul away ruined everything and make it a little more livable and ease some very tired residents of that area.

If I'm not mistaken, I heard the TV station say this morning that of the 3500 homes there prior to the hurricane, there are only 20 now without much damage. That is a tremendous amount of devastation.

Now these figures may also represent businesses of the area, but still.

I drive through some of the area twice a day going to and fro work. It breaks my heart to see everything that people own in a wet pile on the front of their property awaiting pickup, whenever that might be. I imagine they do cry every time they look out their house.

And in the meanwhile, they have nothing in there.

That's where the area pitches in too.

Other areas here are just as devastated if not more so. Sabine Pass is almost not there any longer. Bolivar, a number of beach communities, is gone save one of two houses. High Island caught it bad. These last two haven't even got the power back due to electric lines no longer there.

There is very limited access and egress to Bolivar and that is on a case by case basis and only during certain hours with some escorts. Still, it's a 'Look and Leave' type of program. There is nothing inhabitable now. It will be a long time for services to be returned to that area.

I imagine that these other areas will have their chance for all our 'Golden' residents to swoop down to help them whenever they are ready for it.

If you are not in my area, please open your heart, wallet and pantry to your area's need. There's a lot out there to do and we, the public, CAN DO IT !

I will follow up after some of the efforts take place.

Media you might want to investigate and there are many more for this and other areas:

KBMT Channel 12 TV: http://www.kbmt12.com/

Southeast Texas Food Bank: http://www.setxfoodbank.org/

The Beaumont Enterprise newspaper: http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/

The Orange Leader newspaper: http://orangeleader.com/

The Port Arthur News newspaper: http://www.panews.com

KOGT radio station: http://kogt.com/

KLVI radio station: http://klvi.com/

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