Houston food banks need your help
Cherie Priest sez,
In short, Houston is in major trouble. Via CNN -- "The Houston Food Bank is “utterly overwhelmed with people asking for help,” its president, Brian Greene, said Tuesday. The food bank needs 500,000 pounds of food a day for the next six weeks to satisfy the “staggering” needs of Texans who have no food or water after the storm, he said. ... Greene said the food bank normally distributes aid through local charities, churches and other faith-based organizations. But many were wiped out by the storm or are unable to function because of the lack of electricity or phone service."Food banks (Thanks, Cherie!)The Houston Food Bank -- and the assisting Capital Food Bank in Austin -- are all but bankrupt, and the situation is becoming desperate.
I've already had Austin-area responders commenting on the LJ post, reaffirming the need for help; and I have links to relevant food banks, the SPCA, and the Red Cross handy.
the latest
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I work at a local grocery store in Austin, TX: HEB.
I've found it interesting that HEB, compared to Target, and Walmart has managed to keep about 36 out of 65 stores open including their Central Market in the Houston area.
These cities (Galveston, Houston, and surrounding areas) are utterly paralyzed. The glimmers of hope that I have sensed are the friendliness and pure willpower that Texans have put forth during this time of need.
We still need much more help, it starts with places like the food banks and local groceries, and moves towards the more corporate entities who have the actual materials to change this from a long-term health crisis, to a chance of unity and show of willpower during this hard time for us Texans.
Thank you so much, guys. I really appreciate it! I'll add helpful links throughout the day as people submit them (and they're subsequently vetted).
Good thing my tax dollars already goto FEMA, who have things well in hand. c_c
#1. I was interested to see if others had knee-jerk reactions like that. Too many of us have emails from Texans during Katrina that mocked relief efforts and discussed how Texans would handle it all better. Now the shoe is on the other foot. I am still stung by those emails though. That pro-Texan, anti-African-American attitude has clouded most of my reaction to this hurricane. I am interested to see the first reaction posted here also addressed the pain that Texans caused our country in 2005.
#1, #5: Are you implying that Texans were condemning a group of people based on little more than the collective identity of that group? Yeah, maybe those Texans deserve what they get...
...stare into the Abyss and the Abyss stares back into you.
I gave money to the Houston Food Bank and urge others to do the same. The people who got wiped out by Ike are, generally speaking, not the same people who made nasty comments about the Katrina victims, and Houston took in large numbers of Katrina refugees. As usual, it was the poorest people, living in the most marginal areas, who suffered the most; the well-off just got out of town.
I don't say that as a particular admirer of Texas culture (at least outside of Austin).
Look, Texas is a big place filled with many people -- some of whom are assholes, just like anywhere else. But just like anywhere else, there are good people, and innocent people, and helpful people who are trying to do their damndest in the face of some very difficult circumstances.
More than a handful of the relief workers were also on hand to help with Katrina; and now some of the relocated NOLA residents are likewise joining the fray, struggling to assist an area that's been without power and water for days -- and will likely continue to be without power and water for some time.
No one here is suggesting throwing money at the silver spoons who had a tree fall on their Porche; I'm talking about helping folks who run nursing homes, food banks, animal shelters, and community resource programs. I'm talking about the churches, the volunteer groups, and the Red Cross.
If some twisted sense of schadenfreude insists that these people don't deserve your help, then fine. But they don't deserve your contempt, either.
Texans aren't all like that, #1, #5.
I urge everyone to give a bit to the Capital Area Food Bank (of Austin) or other food banks. You can do it online by credit card. For every $5 you donate they can provide $20 worth of food to the hurricane victims. Don't be a miser and improve your karma!
(I'm originally from Houston, now living in Austin)
This could be hard.
Houston is in the middle of a white zone. The city sprawl made it difficult to build walls to barricade against the undead hordes.
Any supplies would have to be airdropped or delivered via armoured train.
Stupid zombies are attracted to the trains vibrations.
Thanks for posting this. I'd also like to point out that this will be an ongoing need for several months, as people may not be able to go back to work or may not have jobs to go to, so even once people are back in homes with power and stores are restocked, there is going to be a lot of pressure on the hunger relief network. I am an employee at the Capital Area Food Bank in Austin and it took us a year to replenish supplies after Katrina. CAFB serves 21 counties in central Texas, so with all efforts going to hurricane relief, those counties may suffer, too.
I'd also like to add that CAFB of Texas does not discriminate or allow discrimination by our partner agencies. We believe that if someone is hungry, they have a right to food, regardless of race, creed, immigration status, age, or even income (USDA commodities have income guidelines, but people can get other help when in crisis, even if they "should" have the means to get food on their own). There are a lot of assholes in Texas and I have chosen to live in Austin for good reasons, but if my neighbor is hungry, I'm not about to deny him or her the basic dignity of food.
Wow, the anti-Texan sentiments are classy. My heart goes out to the people of my adopted home just like it did for my neighbors in Louisiana.
Not having TV, I am kind of out of the loop as far as how bad it got down there. I just spent an hour digging through chron.com ..wow, I had no idea how bad it got. Thanks for this post, Cory. Talking to other Amarilloans about putting together a food drive.
You would think one call from the President to Bentonville, AR, a couple of weeks ago, would have prevented this problem.
I, too, am surprised at the anti-Texas sentiment. All of our major cities here took in thousands of refugees during Katrina, and we've taken in more since then. Even Amarillo, which is many, many, many hours by bus from Louisiana took in refugees (my mother volunteers with the Red Cross there).
Yes, we have jerks here in Texas (just try driving in San Antonio to see what I mean), but so does every where else. Most of us, however, do have a lot of heart and try to help out our neighbors in need.
Meagan
Waitaminute... so, FEMA dropped the ball with Katrina when all of amerika's money and effort was tied up with a made-up war and lots of people died and were displaced within their own borders. Now amerika is just about bankrupt spending millions of borrowed dollars every day to persecute, torture and kill people who had nothing to do with 9-11 and the world is supposed to have any sympathy?
I have sympathy for the individuals. They are rapidly on the way to living in a third-world country. Maybe amerikans will be less arrogant and abusive in the next generation.
I distinctly recall being called a coward when Canada refused to invade a sovereign nation for no good reason. Remember 'freedom fries'? Remember the upside-down Canadian flag? Amerikans seem to forget that they've been at war with someone for almost a hundred years and it's no surprise that it's coming home to roost.
Spare me the feedback. Canada takes in refugees and I expect that in the next ten years there are gonna be a lot from the south.
I just don't get the vemon that #1 and #5 are showing toward Houstonians. The entire city came together to take care of Katrina victims and suddenly because of a few ignorant forum trolls from Texas all us Houstonians get painted with a negative brush. How open-minded and diverse.
There's no such thing as Pro-Texan or Anti-Texan in my book. We're all in the brotherhood of Humanity.
Ms. Priest, thanks for the FB link, while I forwarded the link to other Freemasons and their lodges here in California, I think they are now moving to start an effort on their own in conjunction with Tx Freemasons.
Stay safe...and dry ;)
The site is blocked from my work by Dept. of Interior filter software!!
Hey Craignoble (#14), now you can count yourself among those ignorant, arrogant Americans you so dispise. Now you've sunk to their level. Your problem is with Conservatives, not Americans.
Remember what Nietzsche said about fighting monsters.
Oh, craigy. Way to generalize much.
Okay, CraigGNoble #14, I'll spare you the feedback if you'll spare me the sanctimony. Just like not all Texans turned up their noses at Louisianans, not all Americans called you personally a coward when you personally refused to invade a sovereign nation. And for those Americans who did track you down and say to you, "Dude, CraigGNoble, you are a coward," well, I certainly hope you gave them a piece of your mind, measured and helpful as it is.
There are a lot of different kinds of people in America, so take your broad brush and position it, using force, within your rectum. We've got some problems here, no doubt, but only some of us (ergo, not all of us) are sitting as dumbly by as you seem to suggest. Most, maybe, and I regret that, but not all.
#17: Really? A food bank site by the Dept. of Interior? That's a little crazy.
#14: Your post post might have been reasonable if you didn't throw "Amerikan" around like a fringe nutjob.
I have 13 dollars in my checking account, 5 went to the Houston foodbank. There's no reason to stereotype anybody during the aftermath of a natural disaster.
CraigGNoble,
I'm left with the oddest impression that you're capitalizing on a tragedy to push your own pet political agenda. That's nobility of spirit.
Wow, the lack of compassion for fellow human beings on this board is pretty distasteful. A close friend of mine, her husband, and 3-year-old are pulling it together in their home in Houston--without power and only recently had running water restored.
They evacuated during the storm and returned to not only a mess, but also a community in need. Many of their neighbors are not well off afterwards. She's a school librarian who can't go back to her job because the elementary school doesn't have utilities back yet and is likewise, a disaster area.
I don't get the boorish behavior. It's both cruel and a cliche (see Sharon Stone after the China quake). Not one of you is better than any other human being--and to even pretend so--makes you that less of a human. Or at least, certainly not the "happy mutants" I've come to hold kinship with on BB. It shouldn't matter what anyone's political alignment is, these are people in need. Grow up. The lot of you haters.
Hi, a Houstonian here. I'm back at work today, rediscovering my precious internet. Overall, I'm very lucky. I have power, water, and no real damage to property. (No cable, though.) But the damage runs the gamut here. I donated and volunteered for Katrina victims. I housed one for a week, and her cat for a month.
Right now, I don't have the time or money to help out much locally, except for immediate neighbors and friends. So if anybody *does* have the time or money, do us a favor and give us a hand. Bitch about it later if you want. Kinda irrelevant to us.
Is their a way for people from other countries to help out meaningfully?
If so please direct me there.
@14
I see no reason to let you off the hook, after portraying Canadians as clueless, arrogant, dipsh*ts.
There is nothing worse, in Canada, than the smug ingrained passive aggressive inferiority complex that certain sections of the Canadian intelligentsia have towards our neighbor to the south.
The desire to portray ourselves as an enlightened (as compared to you know who) ignores basic truths (the Canadian economy is based on hard and brutal resource extraction worldwide, we have an awful record towards first nations, and metis, our politics is insufferably male etc,etc...... )
It's cheap and ignorant, to blindly tar and hack our neighbors to the south, and especially so during a natural disaster.
Oh wait.. the post I was ranting at got removed.
I'm kinda depressed about some of the commenters here. Houston took in TONS of Katrina victims, over 35,000 people, more than any other city. I was in Houston at the time, and pretty much everyone thought that's what we should do. I really don't see why people would hate Texas, just because the Bush family re-located to this state for political reasons? Really? One family moves and you actually *hate* over 23 million people to the point you would want them to starve to death? That is just sad. Even if you can only have compassion for people like you, don't forget, Texas the "red" state means 55% republican. Houston metro area, like most urban areas is pretty strong democratic...
I'm in Houston right now, and rode out the storm, by the way. I think we will be ok. Everyone is working together to get everything back in order, we haven't even seen an increase in crime apparently. But if you would like to help out there are still over 1 million people without power (including me right now, arrgh :)
thx for remembering us here in houston. please send the ice caps. we need what's left of 'em.
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CraigGNoble,
You're off topic, you're pushing a political agenda in a thread about disaster relief and you're rude.
In support of my fair city and ironic political messaging, might I suggest a donation drive of Rice-a-Roni boxes by the truckload?
So I take it this means ... after all the billions that have been spent on its massive facilities ... that FEMA is once again proving to be feckless?
Is this the same government that prepared evacuation plans and built bomb shelters nationwide to help us feel better about the threat of nuclear war? Yes, I believe it is. Any old excuse for a boondoggle.
The lesson is a valuable one. We, the people, need to be ready to help each other ... just as we have helped the rest of the world.
Lots of damage, and a good chunk of people are operating without power. But people still are smiling, and helping each other out.
The simple act of seeing an extension cord laid across the street to help out a neighbor without power may not appear to be much, but it restores one's faith in people a little bit more all the time.
If some people for some reason think Houston is an intolerant, insensitive hellhole, than fine. But I'll always remember seeing the trucks, vans, and cars streaming toward the George R Brown with supplies freshly purchased to help Katrina refugees. The true spirit of helping doesn't require recognition.
#16, if you thought I showed one shred of venom against Houstonians then re-read my post because you misunderstood it.
#6, you can read plainly that I'm not doing that.
If people are blissfully unaware of the pro-Texas, anti-Louisiana email posts that went around for months after Katrina, one of the many ones I remember is here at snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/katrina/personal/reststop.asp and another:
http://www.snopes.com/katrina/politics/jobfair.asp
I hope that Texans come to grips with their relationship to the United States because being on the receiving end of Texasisms is not easy. Humbleness and a recognition that we are all Americans can go a long way toward mending the fences that were torn up. Do you think, you know, the governor might apologize and maybe discontinue the threatening Don't Mess With Texas bumper stickers? Think that's going to happen?
Neener #37,
Do you even know what Don't Mess With Texas means? It means "Don't litter, because we have to pay taxes to pick it up". If you're threatened by that, you've been paying too much attention to Bush.
Steve
- Kiwi, living in Dallas, with family in Houston and Beaumont who have had houses wiped off the face of the earth.
Seems like I got whacked by the volimater. Not sure why because I was encouraging activism and advocating the individual.
My point was that a second failure of an institution that is supposed to be there for citizens in dire need is obscene and the resources of the US are grossly misplaced.
Not like anyone cares anymore. Throw the vowels out the door.
Threatening? What is the threat? Like #38 says, this is an anti-littering campaign that predates the current governor, and Bush by a lot. Due to the extensive advertising most texans associate it with littering also, not whatever "threatening" thing other people are thinking. It means, don't mess with texas, the land, directed at the people.
From wikipedia:
"The phrase Don’t Mess with Texas is a trademark of the Texas Department of Transportation, and is part of a statewide advertising campaign, started in 1986, to reduce littering on Texas roadways. The slogan was created by the Austin-based advertising agency GSD&M, which handled the campaign until 1998. Since this date, the campaign has been managed by Austin based EnviroMedia Social Marketing. "