Click here to view photos from Heartfelt’s New Orleans service project.

Dear Heartfelt Family,

Thank you to so many of you for the countless ways your support for the Katrina Disaster Relief and the Katrina Back to School service projects in New Orleans manifested.

Within days after the disaster occurred, Heartfelt began fielding calls from people that were literally unable to get out of their homes to purchase things like toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, clothing, and the basic necessities of life. I’m never sure how people initially find us but as our Fedex shipments/care packages began to arrive (yes, Fedex was the one carrier that somehow got through to most locations!) the word would spread around the neighborhoods and before we knew it, the little Heartfelt offices became a hub of shopping, collecting, packing and shipping to Katrina-devastated families. (My male volunteers became almost too familiar with taking requests for and then shopping for ladies underwear of all sizes.) Some survivors were still in their homes, and some had fled to other areas with nothing but the wet and ripped clothing on their backs. No one had money or access to it for weeks.

We are proud and grateful for your immediate response with loving hands, hearts, and checks to enable us to assist with the great need we worked to meet before there were many other “boots on the ground”.

The following April, Heartfelt began getting requests from the families we had previously served as well as larger agencies in New Orleans and Baton Rouge for assistance with school supplies and uniforms for children whose families were still unable to provide them. (Louisiana had not relaxed their legal requirements for all children to wear uniforms in order to attend school.)

On August 3, we took a small team of volunteers first to Baton Rouge and distributed 1000 backpacks filled with school supplies for the children at the Renaissance Trailer Park there. Renaissance was set up for New Orleans evacuees from Katrina. The people there were among the poorest, as the poverty level housing they had inhabited in New Orleans had not survived the flood and been bulldozed. These families had literally nowhere to return to, and I was told it was very likely that they’ll be living in these trailers for the rest of their lives.

Our project created such a happy stir in the very depressed community that many local vendors, businesses, agencies and churches came together that day to offer live music, activities, hot food, health check ups for the children, and made a true service project out of our distribution day – on their own!

Two days later, we held an even larger service project and party at City Park in the center of New Orleans for the city’s most in-need children. As well as giving out the filled backpacks, we provided certificates for each of the 2,000 children to receive a school uniform. There were unending hot dogs, cokes, music, toys and gifts, and loving volunteers from some of the local churches to assist us in this outreach. We prayed that the joy and fun we created there would expand throughout the entire city and fill each heart and life.

The excitement and gratitude in the community that we experienced was palpable. Our hotel, The New Orleans Sheraton, upon hearing our purpose there, gifted all of our hotel rooms in gratitude! Amazing donations of mileage, money and goods came in from all parts. Thanks to all! Very special thanks to the Good Works Foundation and John Morton and Laura Donnelley-Morton, Coca Cola, Nicholas Brown, Ron Bernstein, Pam Douglas, the Downs Family, the Sanford Corporation, Marcy Hilecher, and Kathryn Bernstein, for your marvelous support and assistance! And deepest of thanks to our small but hardy traveling team that cared so much about the children of New Orleans, they didn’t care about the challenges: Heide Banks, Lawrence Caminite, Alexandra Crenna De Furio, Anthony Cube, Jessica Dulay, Reshaun Frear, Kathy Grant, Michael Hubbard, Howard Lazar, Jane Miller, Sonia Trejo, Michael Wolfe, and me.

In loving service, Patti

For more information about the Heartfelt Foundation, visit their website at www.heartfelt.org .