Gov. Douglas calls for support, compassion Vermonters open their wallets, homes to those displaced by Katrina

Author: Joshua Carson

Residents of Vermont are providing aid to those affected by Hurricane Katrina, volunteering services, offering rooms in their homes and seats in schools and sending down food, water and supplies by the truckload to the South.

Led by an amalgamation of local, state and independent organizations, Vermonters are expressing their compassion and goodwill by opening their communities and their pocketbooks to provide support for those in the regions devastated by the storm.

Governor Jim Douglas '72 said in a news conference on Sept. 1, "Our job as Vermonters - indeed, as Americans - is to rally around those suffering from this tragedy and to shoulder whatever part of the burden we can bear. Our job is to lift them up, and our job is to offer hope where now there is only despair." Gov. Douglas presented a three-part plan organizing collection points for donations, allocating specialized state assets such as public health officials, special transportation and hazardous material teams and deploying approximately 115 Vermont National Guardsmen specializing in security.

Citizens have heeded to the Governor's call for support. In total, three convoys of 65 tractor-trailer trucks packed with nonperishable supplies from Vermont have arrived in the Gulfport, Mississippi area and officials estimate that contributions exceeded four million pounds.

Soliciting local business, Governor Douglas was able to secure the trucks and drivers which were stationed at collection points throughout the state last week. The initial outpouring of support was so large that local officials were forced to store goods a second, and then a third time, until another convoy could be organized.

In addition, 135 private citizen-volunteers with specialized medical skills have stepped forward for deployment to the areas affected. According to a press release furnished to The Middlebury Campus by Robert Stirewalt, public information officer from the Vermont Department of Health, "deployment of highly skilled medical volunteers may still occur as first-responders and frontline medical personnel rotate out of the region; however, we are currently on hold."

Although federal emergency officials have decided not to relocate affected individuals to small rural states like Vermont, private individuals and local school systems are offering rooms and seats. As of last Friday, 14 families contacted the local Vermont chapters of the American Red Cross requesting relocation assistance within the state. The recently-created Web site hurricanehousing.org lists people from across the country with the ability and desire to host displaced residents of the Gulf region. Although most postings warn that jobs may be limited and the setting is rural - "we live four miles up a dirt road," wrote one Vermonter from Sharon - the site lists over 300 Vermonters willing to donate housing on a temporary basis.

Desks are also open in area schools for children who evacuated with their parents to Vermont. The Addison Central Supervisory Union, one of many school districts in the state which is accepting displaced high school, middle school and elementary school children, has enrolled three students. "We will honor any other requests," said Superintendent Lee Seases who oversees public K-12 education in the county. "Our doors are open." The children, two siblings in the eighth and sixth grades along with a friend in eighth grade, have ties to the community. "These children need a place to go."

While relief efforts by the Vermont government have slowed and most agencies are back on regular schedule, individuals and private institutions are encouraged to organized amongst themselves to provide continuing support for a community which will likely be in need for many months to come.