Introduction

We all know what happened at the end of August, 2005 – Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. What followed was the costliest natural disaster and one of the five deadliest hurricanes in U.S. History. That is the big picture, the 25-word overview. But we also know that there are thousands of smaller stories. This is one of those stories. In the wake of that disaster, several friends and I organized an effort to send local volunteers to assist the animal rescue and shelter operations in the area – they were overwhelmed with abandoned and starving animals and had reached out across the country for help. We ended up sending nearly a dozen volunteers over a 2-month period.

Our primary resource for support was The Bay Team membership. We received substantial donations of both cash and airline miles to help pay expenses of the volunteers. I stayed in town and handled the fundraising and logistics, and also sent out regular updates by e-mail for the benefit of the people who were supporting the effort. The experience was so powerful for the volunteers who traveled to New Orleans that some of them weren’t able to read the updates until long after they returned. In honor of the 5th anniversary of the disaster, I am reposting all of the e-mail updates, as well as some photos, that were sent during that time. For ease of reading, I’m posting all of them in one entry so you can see them chronologically. Use the links on the left NavBar to track the whole story.

Next up: The Original Appeal