“We do this for our children,” and for "those less fortunate than themselves."

“We do this for our children,” Maria, 39, says of having left Houston in a run-down minivan with the hope that Jose Luis, 49, could cash in on the Katrina work boom that has drawn countless Hispanics to the hardest hit areas.

The family made it to Waveland, thinking a friend here would line up work hanging sheetrock for Jose Luis, but the jobs never came through.

Maria recalls that after a first night in a hotel charging $300 for one bed, the family spent several nights in their car, then in a small tent on a strip of grass along Highway 90.

Sandra Reed, an administrator at the Bay St. Louis-Waveland School District, was handing out tents to homeless families with school-age children when she and a Spanish-speaking teacher came across the Martinez family.

“They couldn’t even stand up in it,” she says of the pup tent they were living in. The family received a stand-up tent and the educators saw to it that the eldest child, Julissa, 7, got enrolled in school. “The need was just so stark,” Reed says of the effort expended to help the family.

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Thank you MSNBC - As New Orleans and other areas hit by these natural disasters show how they are really struggling to try to survive, and the kind of organization needed to stay there to document and employ people where they are needed down there is staggering, if not overwhelming.

The only hope they / we have in any real sustained recovery is thru donations of our time and money sent down by those who wish to help - "those less fortunate than themselves."

Click here for a Slideshow of just some of the Devastation

Stephen Rene
www.ParentsWhoCare.us
www.eBusinessProfessionals.us
"Together We can & are Making a Difference"