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Hurricane Katrina
GREEN RELIEF
Social
and environmental justice and public health organizations providing
on-the-ground relief and other services.
Organic
Food
Clean
Energy
Shelter
Detox
Gumbo
Other
Resources
This is a list of accredited
organizations that are engaging in on-the-ground relief, particularly
those that fulfill basic needs in an environmentally sound and socially-just
manner.
Please
email us with additional information for this page.
Organic Food
Organic
Valley (LaFarge, Wisconsin) farmers are donating fresh produce
to the Rainbow People's New
Waveland Café, a mobile kitchen that is serving
three meals a day to over 2,500 people in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Nature's
Path Foods is shipping more than 100,000 boxes of organic food
products (nearly half a million portions) to Texas for distribution
to evacuees.
ROOT CROPS WANTED: The Maine
Organic Farmers and Growers Association says a Portland company
is hoping to ship a truckload of root crops (beets, spuds, etc.)
to Louisiana.
Food
Not Bombs groups all across the southern United States
are feeding families displaced by Katrina. "Help us get food
and supplies past FEMA. We need clothes, cooking equipment, food,
cooks and money to provide for thousands of hungry homeless people.
We have no overhead, rent or salaries so every donation goes directly
to helping people."
America's
Second Harvest desperately seeks truckloads of dry storage
food product, along with donations of transportation, to assist
in the recovery effort. "We are currently looking for very
specific, dry storage items in full truckload quantities: bottled
water, hand-held snacks such as granola and energy bars, breakfast
bars, beefy jerky, peanut butter, canned meals such as hearty soups,
stews, chili, and/or pasta, plates, bowls, cups, and utensils, bleach,
disinfecting household cleaning items, and diapers."
Farm Aid
will channel emergency assistance to farm families devastated by
Hurricane Katrina. Farm Aid has activated the Family Farm Disaster
Fund to encourage donations so that farm families can get the help
they need to recover from the hurricane and continue farming.
The Federation of Southern Cooperatives' has established
the Katrina
Relief & Recovery Fund to assist farmers and rural poor
people effected by hurricane Katrina. "We are witness to immense
tragedies in the rural areas of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana,"
said executive director Ralph Paige. "We now have farmers who
have lost all their crops and markets. Many have lost houses and
means of livelihood," he continued. "We are also expecting
some 300 evacuees seeking housing, food and water throughout the
region." The Federation is partnering with the Cooperative
Development Foundation, FARM AID and Oxfam America and others in
providing relief to effected rural communities. "The funds
will be used for long term relief to help cooperatives rebuild facilities,
re-build markets and help with direct emergency assistance in housing,
food and water," said Ralph Paige.
Southern
Mutual Help Association has set up a special Rural Recovery
Fund. SMHA needs money for grants and specially structured loans
to help rural families recover from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
"Not only is New Orleans devastated but so are so many of the
surrounding rural communities. Fishers and family farmers already
under the stress of international trade agreements, have now lost
homes and the very means of creating a livelihood to recover. Many
rural small businesses are destroyed. The crops in many areas are
gone — cane, citrus, soybeans. The fisheries are destroyed
in large areas of Louisiana's coast. This is a crisis for small
farmers, farm workers and fisher families. SMHA as a rural development
organization needs your help in the recovery effort."
Is your organization willing
to provide organic food to relief efforts? Are there businesses
willing to purchase organic food from area farmers whose markets
have been destroyed? Do you know of organizations that help organic
farmers recover from disaster? Please email
us with contact and program information for this page.
Clean Energy
Veggie Van Organization:
"I am working with biodiesel suppliers in the Mid West as well
as generator companies to bring a convoy of biodiesel-powered electricity
generators and extra biodiesel fuel to hospitals and relief centers
in Louisiana. While much of the fuel and services are being donated,
the many relief centers can use as much as we can provide. If you
are compelled to help us in this effort, please donate through the
web site. Donations will go toward the purchase of fuel, fuel transfer
equipment, generator rentals and travel expenses."
The U.S.
Biodiesel Board reports, "The Veggie Van Organization,
a nonprofit advocacy group based in Venice, Calif., recently partnered
with West Central, a farmer-owned biodiesel company based in Iowa,
to transport 13,000 gallons of biodiesel to the Gulf Coast. The
donated fuel powered a shrimp boat-turned-relief boat, a former
military ship owned by Sub Sea Research, and emergency generators
for makeshift medical facilities aboard the vessel. The ships left
on Sept. 16 and took 12 tons of food, water, ice and other relief
supplies to the victims in devastated areas near the mouth of the
Mississippi River."
The West
Central Cooperative in Iowa is donating 15,000 gallons of soy
biodiesel fuel to farmers and workers assisting in Katrina clean-up
efforts, according
to the Federation of Southern Cooperatives. In Yazoo City, Mississippi,
the biodiesel will be used to assist workers who are helping to
clean up debris by using various types of fuel powered equipment
needed for clean up purposes and that can use 100% biodiesel fuel.
In Meridian, Miss., the fuel will be delivered to a refinery to
be blended with diesel fuels and offered to farmers in need. Farmers
will receive a 100% discount on the biodiesel portion of the blend.
"We decided to donate to Katrina affected farmers and workers,"
said Jeff Stroburg, CEO of West Central Co-op, "because we
knew there was a need. We also knew the Federation was assisting
farmers and rural communities in the aftermath of the hurricane
and we wanted to help."
Are there other organizations
providing clean energy (biofuels, renewable energy generators) to
relief efforts? Please email us
with contact and program information for this page.
Healthy Shelter
Habitat
for Humanity: As conditions on the ground allow, Habitat
teams will move to assist Habitat families and others who lived
in the storm’s destructive path and provide whatever immediate
assistance possible. Long-term assistance will involve Habitat affiliates
and volunteers working together with those impacted by the storm
in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
Are there any organizations
willing to assist relief efforts with environmentally sound building
materials? Please email us with
contact and program information for this page.
De-Tox Gumbo
Louisiana
Bucket Brigade: Ann Rolfes and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade
have been working with community members from St. Bernard Parish,
surveying the widespread community damage from Chalmette-area oil
refineries. The Brigade and St. Bernard Citizens started the long
rebuilding process with a meeting
in Baton Rouge in late September. About 180 people from St.
Bernard Parish attended, shared information, and started to "get
organized for the long road ahead." Primary questions included:
What are the Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental
Protection Agency doing in the parish? and How can the community
best communicate with one another now that everyone is scattered?
Lousiana Environmental
Action Network: LEAN is providing local health assistance to
evacuees, long-term clean-up of NOLA. It is also addresing the"
toxic cesspool and chemical contamination that will be left behind
when the water finally recedes." LEAN will hold a conference
in Baton Rouge on Saturday, Nov. 12, on rebuilding Louisiana.
Is your organization on site
-- monitoring, exposing and alleviating the massive toxic pollution
in Katrina's wake? Please email
us with contact and program information for this page.
Other
Resources
Sparkplug
Foundation: List of Grassroots/Low-income/People of Color-led
Hurricane Katrina Relief
Last update: Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2005
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