As some of you know, coolgale8 wrote an article about me for Whyvillian In the Spotlight a few weeks ago. She found out that I volunteered to visit New Orleans, LA, and help out with Hurricane Katrina relief over my spring break. While this was hard work, and everyone was hot and dirty, it felt great to be helping people in this situation.

When I first arrived in New Orleans, it was around 11:00 p.m., so it was quite dark. But the next day, when I woke up and looked around, I saw how much damage there still was, and I felt like I needed to help as much as I could in that short week I was there.

While I was down there, I mainly helped make food, and we served lunch and dinner every day in a big tent. Also, I worked in the store. Now this store was different than the store we're used to . . . everything in it is free! Yes, free! In the store they had basically the essential stuff, soap, diapers/wipes, shoes, clothes, soups, canned vegetables, basic things that we don't even think about, but we really need them. Everything that the camp has, the food, the tents, the trailers etc. is donated. Each month, they receive billions of dollars worth of goods donated to the camp, but they put the items to good use.

The damage there is still appalling, and I didn't realize until I got there how bad the damage was, and how bad it still is. There are people homeless, hungry, and suffering in the sultry weather in the day, and sleeping on park benches and what not in the night.

The reason I'm telling you this is because I experienced what it really is like being down in New Orleans and seeing everything that is still desperate for help, and it's completely different than what your TV, or computer screen could show with a million pictures, it's so much different than what you think you have seen.

Now, I'm not telling everyone to just pack up and go down to help with hurricane relief for a month, or even a week. I'm telling you guys that this hurricane disaster isn't going to go away on its own. It's going to take years, even decades to clean up. But why don't you try helping this on a smaller scale, maybe support a family in need who lost a home, or send a few dollars to a relief camp, sure, volunteer there if you would like! That's a great thing to help do!

But even something you can do right away, go clean up your community, pick up trash around your neighborhood, hold a food drive and give it to your local food pantry. Even those things, if they're not for the hurricane relief, it's a start! Try to make an effort to help people, whether it's across the country, right next door, or all over your town because I know how hard it can be these days to not think about anyone else, and only do things for yourself. But I promise you, if you really make an effort to help, you will feel so good inside, and it's a feeling you can't get from just putting on some lipstick and going to the mall -- not that kind of good. It's a feeling you get when you know you have actually done something to help out this world.

I know that I made a difference in helping with the hurricane relief, not a huge difference, but a difference. I learned so much, and experienced so much while I was helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina, so much I can't express it in words, so I tried my best in this article of the Whyville Times.

-Hotty478