My search efforts came up empty so if this has been brought up before please direct me.
I’m off to either Mississippi or Louisiana next month for a short time and intend to spend my visit volunteering in one effort or another, preferable animal rescue. I’m a female and will be on my own in this endeavor and have some reservations.
I would like to hear of anyone’s experience with his/her volunteering in this area.
Please share.
I don’t know how things are at present. My mother lives in Gulfport, she sent me emails of pictures of the devastation – trees through houses, a boat smashed into a casino, etc. The house my mother lives in now was flooded up to the ceiling. Here’s an excerpt from an email she sent me:
Another of my friends was working with Red Cross in a Hurricane Katrina shelter on the Louisiana-Mississippi stateline. She’s really embittered about her experience, says Red Cross and the media downplayed how bad the devastation really was. She saw a man get his throat cut at the shelter, had nightmares for two weeks. When we were in Florida in 2004 for hurricanes Ivan and Jeanne, she was threatened with a shotgun so she hasn’t had the greatest luck with Disaster Relief projects. Be sure to take advantage of any counseling that you might be offered, relief work can be emotionally devastating.
Well, I haven’t “offically” volunteered, (I live in New Orleans and have helped friends and neighbors a great deal) but I did get reassigned from my regular job to work supporting the New York and Chicago firefighters who came to New Orleans to help our fire department after the storm.
While it’s commendable that you want to work in animal rescue, and there are still opportunities to make a difference down here and in Mississippi, people down here are in such need that unless your heart is set on animal work, please consider doing something with Habitat for Humanity or some other charity or church that helps with housing.
As for working alone, I wouldn’t recommend it. There are always dangers involved in moving around a metropolitan area - - random crime, violent crime - - and a woman working alone can be a target. Another consideration is the amount of looting that is still going on in the damaged suburbs here, and police are pretty quick to detain and question people who don’t look like they belong in a neighborhood. If I misunderstood, and you’re planning on coming down alone but join up with a group, please disregard these comments.
If you do come down, and do animal work, please DON’T put any more spray painted signs on people’s homes, no matter how damaged those homes happen to be. The human rescue/body search crews left markings on houses they checked, but they were relatively small. Animal rescue groups left similar marks, but they’re often HUGE. “1 DOG, LEFT FOOD 9/2/05. 1 FISH DEAD” in letters 2 feet tall. So… please… don’t.
Good luck. Thanks for the help.
Thanks for your responses and words of caution. Best wishes for both of your families and friends.
I submitted the thread thinking that someone here might strongly recommend a particular group as there are so many. So I do plan on joining a one, just don’t know which one yet. I’ll consider your suggestions Ivorybill
I don’t know of any particular group that stands out among the many that are here. If you want to do animal work, see if you can contact the LA SPCA to see who they recommend if you want to come to New Orleans, or the MS SPCA for Mississippi. I would think that both could refer you to good groups.