Toothpaste, band-aids, and clippers

I just got back from helping the local Methodist Church pack care packages for Katrina refugees. FYI if you happen to be involved in a similar effort, the things we ran out of the most quickly were toothpaste, band-aids, and clippers. So buy lots of those. Next I think was towels. We had tons of combs and washcloths left over. For my part, I also made a $50 donation to the Red Cross (after which my mom told me I should have donated to UMCOR, because they don't take stuff out for administrative costs; I would want to do research before believing her). At any rate, as the only person carrying a pocket knife, I mostly cut tags off of towels and washcloths. Most of the towels were in bunches, so they HAD to be cut apart, and it seemed best to cut the tags off the singletons as well. My other contribution was to suggest using the leftover grocery bags to keep the clothespins together (someone had gone to search for ziplocs, but the grocery bags were already there).

It seemed strange to me that nearly everyone there was elderly, probably retired. There were only about five younger adults (including me and my mom), and a few gradeschool-age kids. Now, if my mom hadn't mentioned it to me, I wouldn't even have known about it, but as soon as I heard I wanted to help. And surely the church members aren't 75% retirees. Something's off there. It might be as simple as Sunday school not officially starting back up again yet, so people weren't there to hear the announcement. *shrugs* Or maybe it's because of Labor Day weekend. Who knows. Whatever the reason, it struck me as odd.

Addendum: Here's another source for info directly from New Orleans: Survival of New Orleans