Cindy Sheehan Arrives
The supplies keep rolling in at Camp Casey III in Covington, Louisiana.
Cars, trucks, buses are loaded up in the morning and sent off in different directions. They are told not to come back until everything is gone, and they don't come back until everything is gone.
You, dear reader, can help their efforts by sending supplies, housing volunteers, or volunteering yourself. Check VFPRoadTrips.org and the message board there to get involved.
Cindy Sheehan arrives at Camp Casey III in about half an hour.
“My efforts for these last weeks since we left Camp Casey, in Crawford have been about standing up against the inept policies of the Bush Admin and about helping people who are suffering because of those policies,“ Sheehan said. “The good citizens of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are certainly among this group, and I want to do whatever I can to be of assistance to them,”
Volunteers at Camp Casey III have already delivered over 100 tons of food and supplies to communities in Louisiana and Mississippi that had seen no relief until they arrived.
They are working with community leaders in some areas; in other areas, they are simply delivering food, water, and other supplies to individuals. Yesterday they delivered 20 tons of supplies to the neighborhoods of West Bank, Algiers, lower gardens and French Quarter in New Orleans and Bay St. Louis and Kiln, Mississippi.
Cindy will spend the day with the Veterans for Peace and the volunteers at Camp Casey III delivering supplies.
More to come...
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Sheehan will miss tour's Albany stop
By Carol DeMare / Times-Union
ALBANY -- Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan will not be on the bus when her tour group arrives at the Capitol on Wednesday, opting instead to join veterans in Louisiana working on hurricane relief.
Local supporters learned over the weekend that Sheehan's plans had changed, but members of her group, the "Bring Them Home Now Tour," will carry on the day's program as planned, said Elaine Hills, who is with Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace.
Sheehan also canceled a stop in Syracuse that was scheduled for today. She was to arrive in Albany tonight, but went to Covington, La., to meet with Veterans for Peace. The group had been part of her national tour.
The veterans "have been running relief efforts out of Covington and providing food and clothing and satellite communication on their bus" so those displaced by Hurricane Katrina can contact family members, Hills said.
Gold Star Families for Peace, of which Sheehan is a co-founder, is a sponsor of the tour and will be among the hosts in Albany where at least six activists will talk. While Sheehan, whose son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, 24, was killed in Iraq last year, "is the spark of the movement, there are others on the tour who have also lost their children, and they will be speaking to us," Hills said. "We anticipate local families with loved ones in the military will be joining us. And we will honor local families who have lost loved ones."
Late last month, after a weeks-long vigil near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, Sheehan began a cross-country bus tour that will culminate in a peace rally in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 24.
In Albany, a symbolic Camp Casey will be set up at 10 a.m. in Capitol Park West to honor those who have died in Iraq. At noon, the rally will move to the front of the Capitol. At 6:30 p.m., demonstrators will walk around the Capitol in a memorial procession and into Chancellor's Hall across Washington Avenue in the state Education Building for a 7 p.m. forum
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"We're not counting on the government to take care of us anymore"
Following Hurricane Katrina evacuees out of New Orleans
By David Enders / MotherJones.com
COVINGTON, LA — Around 60 Hurricane Katrina refugees are staying in the cafeteria of Pine View Middle School. Covington has suffered heavy wind damage from the storm but not as much flooding as other areas. Since September 2, members of Veterans for Peace, an anti-war group that had been on its way to Washington, DC, for protests later this month, have been delivering donated relief supplies to the area.
"We left Camp Casey and Cindy Sheehan with thousands of pounds of food that was donated there and we got here and handed it out within hours. That's our mission, to open up a functional supply line to southern Louisiana," said Dennis Kyne, a veteran of the 1991 Gulf War. "We're not counting on the government to take care of us anymore, they've already proven they won't."
The Red Cross, which is officially in charge of the shelter in Covington, is supplying basic medical care and shelter, while volunteers are helping to cook and provide additional supplies.
"When we first showed up they were without power and they had some medical needs," said Douglas Soderbergh, who served in Lebanon and in Iraq in 1991. "We have power generation and we hooked them up. They have a small child here that has cystic fibrosis and requires physical therapy with a small chest bag that pounds his chest and loosens him up and he has a ventilator. We fed them a hot meal, they had until then been eating MREs or cold food."
Soderbergh said the group was invited by local police to stay at the middle school, but that initially there was some friction between Veterans for Peace and officials from the Red Cross, FEMA and Homeland Security at the regional level because of the group’s anti-war advocacy.
"They tried to get us out of here, but the volunteers from the Red Cross said 'if you kick the veterans out, we're leaving too," Soderbergh said. "That stopped it pretty quick." The regional directors have since returned to check on the site.
"They've been here several times in the past few days and acknowledged our value and thanked us for our service," Soderbergh said.
Red Cross volunteers at the shelter saidthat the volunteers from Veterans for Peace have been invaluable because they are not bound by the same restrictions as the relief agency, and some of the volunteers have even brought supplies for the veterans to hand out.
"These people didn't have any baby diapers," said Joanne Tandler, a Red Cross volunteer from New York.
Tina Levi, an evacuee from Slidell, about fifteen miles east of Covington, stops to talk for a minute. Her trailer is totaled, she says, and she has no insurance. Her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend evacuated with her, and although they went $10,000 into credit card debt the week before the storm "she bought a brand new TV to watch football this season," Tina says her daughter's credit was still good enough to make the down payment on a car and replace the one destroyed by the storm, and that even though everyone at the shelter has been helpful — people with cars have been helping to ferry around people who lost theirs — she's now ready to move somewhere else.
Military convoys roll through Covington and across the Lake Pontchartrain causeway to New Orleans, where the Army and National Guard are slowly taking back the city street by street. The liberation comes, perhaps, a little late and is a touch haphazard. In the lower Ninth Ward, where the water has gone down a couple feet in the last few days, we find Lloyd, an old man standing on the second floor of an apartment building from which some of the stairs have been washed or blown away. Wearing a bathrobe and flip-flops, he looks disoriented and answers questions slowly. He says he wants to leave. We inform some guard soldiers at a checkpoint nearby who say they will evacuate him.
Down the street, a Rottweiler sits obediently on the front porch of a home surrounded by three or four feet of water, waiting for someone to come back.
On Interstate 10, people with their belongings, strapped to the tops of their vehicles, travel west to Baton Rouge and beyond. As far as Houston, gas stations are only taking cash because of the "increased number of drive-offs" in recent days. The dead leaves on the trees along the roadside—some with broken branches, some entirely felled—give the impression of an early fall. The radio reports on tragedies only now coming to light, including: a sheriff who abandoned all the prisoners in his jail; a water purification system donatedby the Swedish government that remains on an airplane in Sweden, pending approval from the US government; a story about a Baton Rouge gun shop that has recently been selling more than 1,000 firearms a day to aid workers, law enforcement officials, and citizens worried about looting. "It's better than Christmas," the owner says.
The digitals signs along the highway, rather than providing traffic information, display the FEMA hotline number and messages such as DEBIT CARDS NOT AVAILABLE AT ASTRODOME.
Next door to the Astrodome, at the Reliant Center, evacuees mill about on the suburban sidewalks and manicured median strips that are normally empty when there's not an event going on. Under the most extreme circumstances, people are being moved from shabby public works projects to gleaming buildings constructed with public money.
Ed Sears, 58, was one of the first evacuees to arrive at the Astrodome after he was airlifted from Highway 10 in New Orleans. He said he and his neighbors had crammed 10 to 15 people into single-family apartments on the second floor of a public housing project in that occupied the highest ground in his neighborhood.
Sears has a $360 debit card and says he will go back to Baton Rouge and look for a job there while waiting to return to New Orleans, where he hopes he can pick up work on some sort of cleanup effort. He says he went to buy a T-shirt, but the card hadn't been activated yet.
"This don't belong to me," he says. "When they say go, I got to roll."
David Enders is a regular contributor to Mother Jones. His first book, Baghdad Bulletin, is available from University of Michigan Press.
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2 Tons of Food Delivered
From Jason
Just went into the West Bank of New Orleans with Michael, who lives there, and who remained there throughout the hurricane. He is also a VFP member helping with the effort.
We took a convoy of 3 cars to the projects there and gave out close to 2 tons of food to a much needed community. Many people there haven’t seen the Red Cross or FEMA yet. The problem is that these areas have a central location to pick up food, water, and medicine but most of the people in these areas do not have themeans to get to the locations. Needless to say, they were extremely grateful to see us.
We are heading back now to Covington with the convoy to pick up more goods and then we plan to go back into New Orleans for more deliveries.
More To Come....
******************************************************************** First Relief
From Jason
I am now returning from my second trip today into the West Bank projects of New Orleans.
This time Michael (the local VFP guy here) took us to the Marrero Projects in the West Bank. This is an area that did not have much structural damage but the people there have very little. Barely any food or water, cleaning supplies or toilet paper. Our convoy of 3 unloaded close to another 2 tons on the second trip. That brings our total today to about 4 tons of goods and food that we brought to some of the poorest places in New Orleans.
I was told time and time again today by hurricane survivors that we were the first relief that any of these people have seen yet. 14 days after the hurricane and still no aid brought to them from anyone except for some Veterans for Peace.
Later, we were driving around and saw the first Red Cross vehicle I have seen in 3 days giving food and aid to people in the streets. I went over and let them know that we have been to numerous areas that they have not yet gone and a woman gave me a very "Bushian" answer. "We're improving everyday", she said. I don't blame her but something needs to change on the streets of New Orleans and soon.
We could have unloaded a lot more and we plan to do more tomorrow. We are on our way out now so that we can leave before the six o'clock curfew.
****************************************************************** Twenty Tons
From Eric:
Last night, we dropped cases of food and water to the holdouts in the French Quarter. A woman whose husband is tending bar at Johnny White's is helping to distribute Veterans for Peace food to her community.
Johnny White's never closed its doors through the entire hurricane and aftermath (they don't even have locks). The bar has become a community center of sorts. We stopped by to meet these resilient peoplewho are keeping the spirit of New Orleans alive and searching for levity in the shadow of a disaster. A foot-stomping, guitar-strumming, harp-blowing man in the corner was singing zydeco standards.
We spoke to the New Orleans police who had just come from discovering an old age home and the seven dead residents left behind by the staff. They were worn down and unusually candid. They couldn't understand why people would rather stay in their homes than get $2,000 bucks from FEMA and a one-way ticket to Cleveland. Many New Orleans residents shared the concern that the longer people are kept from their homes, the fewer will return. Gentrification made easy.
When we got back to Camp Casey, we were told at the gate that help was needed at the storage facility. Another shipment had come in, but this one was big so we turned the bus around and embarked to help our fellow campers unload.
When we returned to the campsite, there were a hundred people and scores of tents. People were getting to know one another, sharing stories and strategizing tomorrow’s food blitz to the hungry.
8AM Meeting at Camp Casey III campground.
The longer we are here, the clearer we see the varying needs of different neighborhoods. Delivery routes are revealing themselves and being added to our list so we can continue to feed the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
Yesterday was a landmark day for us. We delivered 10 tons of food. One of the campers was so overwhelmed by the outpouring of love that she began to cry. I can’t overstate how those who sent food, supplies, and donations have brightened the hopes of those who were left to die by their government. Some of them are eating tonight and thinking of you.
Cindy Sheehan will be visiting tomorrow.
Billy, Veteran for Peace, delivers food to Reverand Moses L. Powell. Poweel will distribute the food to his community. Photo credit: Paul, TN
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Reports from the Road
North Tour: Buffalo
September 12, 2005
Pushing his granddaughter in a stroller through downtown Buffalo yesterday, Leo, a Vietnam War vet, stopped to look at a banner erected on the square. “Hell yes!” he exclaimed. “That’s what we need! We always have money for killing people. We ought to have money for that.” The sign he referred to stated in bold letters: “Justice for victims of Katrina. Money for human needs, not war.” It had been set up by members of the Western New York Peace Center to welcome the Bring Them Home Now Tour to this city on the eastern tip of Lake Erie.
click here to read more
South Tour: Atlanta and Savannah
September 12, 2005
It was an early start for those of us sleeping in the RV. Chito kicked us out at six in the morning to take our bus to the shop and get the generator fixed. They changed the starter and the oil and she’s purring like a kitten again. We didn’t ship off from Atlanta until 2 o’clock, which set us back just a bit. We arrived in Savannah to join Phil and Linda, who were preparing to appear on the Donny Deutch show on CNBC. He was hosting a town hall meeting from his studio in New York with families whose loved ones are serving or were lost in Iraq. Linda was doing a remote interview for the show and we were there to be in support.
click here to read more
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