Many more thousands are not even this fortunate with nowhere to go, nothing to eat and no hope for tomorrow. The situation in Louisiana and Mississippi could only be summed up as, well, desperate!
This suffering will linger a long time. Tears will fall for years. Simply getting life back to where it used to be will perhaps take decades!
Overdramatic? Hardly. More like drastically understated!
Perhaps you did as I did when you first heard of Hurricane Katrina and rushed to make a donation. That's wonderful but the need for what can only be described as a very long haul, is greater than that. Far greater.
One only has to turn on almost any station on the tube to realize the suffering is beyond comprehension. The scope of this rescue-and-relief-and-rebuild effort is quite simply, unimaginable.
There is great need now; there will be just as great a need next week and for months and years to come. Long after the media has shifted it's attention to the next disaster, and then the next, and public attention has quickly faded away.
There's a woman, a very popular woman in the Internet business community, who happens to live in Louisiana and had for the week after Katrina struck been silently purchasing food and supplies and personally looking into the eyes of the displaced victims she delivered them to.
Her name is jl scott, and she is the founder of the International Council of Online Professionals (http://www.i-cop.org), a respected online community of e-business professionals dedicated to conducting business on the Internet with honesty and integrity.
jl did not want it known publicly what she was doing in the background, however, it was this exhausting experience that made her realize that this was indeed a "long haul" and that she could make a much larger "dent" by using her online influence to raise desperately needed donations.
Plus, she could ensure every donor, large and small, that every nickel raised would go DIRECTLY to those in need. And, VERY quickly.
So, she rounded up her charity program partner, Rick Beneteau (http://www.RickBeneteau.com) and they went to work! Rick and jl work every year for the Internet Toy Drive in conjunction with "Toys for Tots."
They are posting reports on a regular basis at:
http://www.katrina-long-term-relief.com
Now, here's where YOU come in. You can make a dramatic difference in someone's life right now. And it will only take a minute or two of your time.
A minute or two that, at the very least, will shed a bright ray of much needed hope into the shattered life of a fellow human being. It might even stop a tear. Or, perhaps it will cause one to be shed: a tear of utter joy.
Please, I appeal to you to open your heart by clicking on this life-saving link and taking a minute or two to help a total stranger: http://www.katrina-long-term-relief.com
In return, I promise your heart will be richly rewarded. Thank you!
Again, here is where you are so desperately needed:
http://www.katrina-long-term-relief.com
In Honor & Memory of The AdMistress - Marion Stearns
