Tuesday, May 30, 2006

The Shreveport Times-Nonprofits add disaster relief to duties

The Shreveport Times: "Last September, Shreveport-Bossier City's nonprofit and faith-based agencies added a new duty to their job description: disaster relief.

Sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry and sharing the gospel are hefty tasks on a normal day, but the influx of tens of thousands of evacuees stretched resources and skills to their limits.

'As I think back on it, the nature of what we had to deal with was so overwhelming, it was beyond our experience level,' said Joe Pierce, executive director of the United Way of Northwest Louisiana. 'Previous times we've opened shelters for two or three days. This time we gave a party and 40,000 people came.'

Pre-Katrina, organizations like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army specialized in disaster relief."

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