Adam's Volunteer Experience

Laurie and I got up early and everyone that was on volunteer detail rallied at my house at 8:30am Thursday, September 8th.  Justin, Chris and Sarah all met us and we got underway.  We decided that we wanted to try to get into the thick of things so we went to the Astrodome.  After sitting in traffic for 45minutes, we were turned away by security guards saying that they were not taking volunteers.  At this time we heard that our second group of volunteers from work (Mike and Jennifer) got into the George R. Brown Convention Center and were doing data entry for FEMA.  This sounded tres easy so we beelined it to downtown hoping to get in and do our volunteer time in front of computer (as if I'd be that lucky). The people guarding the parking lots downtown were mega-cool to volunteers.  If you said you were there to volunteer, they let you park for free.  The city of Houston really amazed me that day.  Everyone was so appreciative of volunteer efforts.  So we went to the GRBCC and got turned away at two separate points.  There were volunteers there whose job was just to turn away volunteers.  It kinda pissed me off. Fortunately one of the "you aren't allowed here" volunteers directed us to the Star of Hope Mission which was just a stiff walk away from GRBCC (about a mile away). So we went past a couple hundred evacuees that were standing in line for who knows what outside of the convention center.  When we found the SoHM we were ushered in and sent to the back.  Good grief, the place was packed with donations.  There was a pile of donated clothes as big as a McDonald s that sat on a couple of basketball courts (and later we found out that that was just the tip of the iceberg, there were 5 more off-site warehouses full).  There were about 40 people inside an open-air building sorting clothes into boxes.  There were about 4 full-time forklifts mulling around moving stuff onto trucks.  There were three or four guys operating a bailer that was compacting clothes into portable blocks.  We show up at the mission and a volunteer greets us, gives us a two minute run-down and then lets us go.  There was no supervision or anything -- make your own work.  Basically SoHM is responsible for handling donations; they do several thing with them. First thing they do is hand out donations to evacuees that show up at the mission.  Second thing they do is box up sorted donations so they can give items out in the future to evacuees that show up at the mission -- these items are boxed and put on pallets and then carted off to off-site warehouses.  Third thing they do is throw a bunch of loosely sorted stuff together to be bailed and shipped to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to be sorted and distributed there. Laurie and Sarah went to work in the sorting department.  Laurie says that it needed someone to take charge and get everyone on the same page.  People were sorting stuff in random categories.  Some people were just sorting women's/men's/kid's.  Others were sorting women's shirts/women's pants/men's underwear/etc.  So there was no consistency. (As an aside, another group went to SoHM on Friday and some Chevron big shot took charge of the sorting operation and standardized the whole thing.  That guy did a lot of good.) Justin, Chris and I were put on manual labor detail and hauled clothes from the McDonald's sized pile to one of two sorting groups or to the clothes bailers.  It was pretty back breaking, but there was always something to do.  Over the course of four hours, I would say that about 5 people working the pile moved about 3000 cubic feet of clothing (30'x10'x10').  We may have moved 1/10th of the original pile. There was a misunderstanding at the mission.  There is a cafeteria there and we were told by one of the greeter volunteers that the food was for SoHM employees only.  That wasn't the case, however.  We found out after coming back from a great Mexican food lunch (at Irma's) that the cafeteria was feeding the volunteers.  Still, I'm glad I went to Irma's, it was very good (though pricey -- $15/plate). Things I learned about donating in times of crisis. o  Wash your donations -- do not donate dirty clothes.  In disaster relief there is not enough time for the donations to be washed before being distributed.  There was some bag in the pile that smelled like human urine.  I don't know if someone peed on the pile of clothes or if someone just didn't wash them before donating them.  I figure the latter is more likely than the former. o  Sort your donations beforehand o  Put your donations in strong, very strong, plastic bags (not boxes) -- I can not stress this enough.  If your bag of donated clothes bursts, there is a good chance your donations will be thrown away (a lot a burst bag ends up with all the clothes in the dirt).  I had a bag burst on me and a bunch of clean, but stained, men's briefs rolled into my face while I was carrying them. o  Clearly label your bag o  If you donate shoes, connect the pairs together somehow.  When sorting clothes, a lot of times all bags are just emptied into a large pile.  If a sorter picks up a shoe with no mate, chances are they will throw it away.  Or if they keep it, it will be so far away from its mate that no one will be able to use it. When we finished at 3pm, I went home and slept for two or three hours. It really sucked the energy out of me.  If I do any more volunteer work, I'll be sure to go back to SoHM.  I felt appreciated there and they had work to do.  I actually walked in on two SoHM employees arguing.  One of them was grumpy because all the volunteers were making him work harder and he was telling people to stop working.  The other was telling him to knock that off and not scare away the volunteers, that we were needed. I liked hearing that argument. I'd like to address the rumor that the evacuees are all mean-spirited, greedy people.  I talked to several that day, and walked around tons of them.  All of them were super-nice and appreciative.  I never once met any jerks (though I assume they are there somewhere).  I think its a case of a couple of bad apples spoiling the bunch. Adam

Well, God bless you. I'm glad you did it. I hope Laurie feels better quickly.
I did a very minor part for the Katrina relief effort. I helped collect and deliver some items at my company. We basically lugged boxes back and forth for an hour or so. I had the opportunity to go to a homeless shelter and volunteer more of my time, but I did not.
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