Christmas in New Orleans

Christmas in New Orleans: "Christmas in New Orleans

Ron Riekki

For months I had emailed and called agencies seeing if I could volunteer for the Katrina Relief efforts. None of the organizations answered my queries, except for one generic mass email I received from Habitat for Humanity. So instead I had a friend of mine, Jay Melder who lives in Baton Rouge, make some calls. He, of course, living there, was much more successful. Understandably, several of the organizations in Louisiana are too busy to respond to a faceless email from the Midwest. They need people that are in the immediate vicinity. I wasn’t. So I figured if I went on my own I would be there and it would be tough to turn me away. Such was the case.

As soon as my flight got in, I called Volunteer Baton Rouge and they gave me several numbers to call. The first was the Salvation Army, but they were fully staffed with volunteers for a job that involved packing lunches. I tried the next number—Catholic Community Services. They were interested. The job was a dream job for a volunteer, especially one who used to fantasize about working at Santa’s Workshop in the North Pole back when he was a preteen. The job: organize and deliver presents to Baton Rouge’s poor and displaced children from New Orleans."