At the Ready

Yesterday I spent a good part of the day at the Red Cross in Oakland. My friend Kris already had plans to volunteer and I decided to join her to see what I could do. Basically, we helped the administrative process of getting prospective volunteers to training sessions for either the National/Local Call Centers or for Family Service (meeting face to face with those affected by Katrina).

It was pretty inspiring to see a large number of people willing to give time to help - especially the numbers of those that want to be deployed to areas really in need of assistance. Not everyone will qualify for deployment and the volunteers pretty much vocalized the worse case scenario to try and scare of those who, quite frankly, don't have the chops. There's a pretty intensive screening for deployment and chances are over half the volunteers from the Bay Area will not even make the cut. Still, those volunteers have good intentions.

I want to thank Kris for showing me what I could do - even if it is something small. It hard for me to justify sittin' around on my ass and surfing the web. Too many people are hurting and continue to hurt. I'm going back on Sunday.

Also, if you haven't heard. Check this out.

-E