The New Orleans based Times-Picayune newspaper has a story this morning about how the people of the region are ready to do whatever is needed to help the folks of Southern California get back on their feet after the wildfires.
“‘I’m getting phone calls: ‘Can we go? Can we go?,’ ‘ said Archdeacon Dennis McManis, operations director of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana’s office of disaster response. ‘I’m telling them, ‘Let’s sit back and see what they need.’
Images of families distraught about their losses have particular resonance in the New Orleans area, where tens of thousands of families received large and small gifts of aid, housing and other gestures of generosity in the weeks immediately after Hurricane Katrina.
“But we also remember how we got inundated in those first days with people wanting to give us stuff — often stuff we didn’t need. Or people coming here and just telling us what they could do for us,” McManis said.”
The article goes on to describe how various other religious agencies are preparing to help out once the needs are known. The groups include mainline protestant denominations, the Roman Catholic archdiocese and evangelical church groups.
Read the rest here.