The fund is a 501(c)(3) corporation.
Rice Voelker, LLC. pays all expenses so that all contributed dollars are eligible for distribution to charities and individuals.
December 2, 2005
Dear Friend,
In Louisiana our world is upside down. For Louisianans south, east, and west of the so-called hub city of Alexandria, for every measure we take socially, financially, and spiritually of our lives these days, upside down says it all. Our license plates read Sportsman´ss Paradise but this year Louisiana is a Sportsman´ss Purgatory.
Much of New Orleans remains a wasteland. The 100,000 residents in Orleans Parish today constitute less than a quarter of the pre-disaster population. Houses deemed to be salvageable display piebald roofs with blue tarp badges of survival. Refrigerators, teeming with rotted meals to be and condemned by powerless days, lie like giant mail boxes on the sidewalks. The state estimates that 22 million tons of debris awaits clearance in South Louisiana, half of which is in Greater New Orleans. City services are only minimally restored thwarting the restart of businesses. Service employees, critical to our tourist economy; find job opportunities plentiful but available housing far in excess of their economic grasp. We got the blues all right, the blue tarp roof blues.
We bear the torrid summers here in anticipation of the time that has now arrived. Cool dry air arrives shortly after the first kickoffs for L.S.U. in Baton Rouge and the Saints in the Superdome. But this year the home opener for the Tigers was in Arizona and for the Saints in New York. The Saints are always part Shakespearean tragedy (last second losses this year on botched officials´s calls) and part Vaudeville (a starting wide receiver was unable to play due to a rib injury caused by a sneeze). This fall the Saints´s misanthropic owner piled on his Katrina-battered fans with a threat to move the team to San Antonio. Newly public culinary icon Ruth´ss Chris Steakhouse moved corporate headquarters from Metairie to Orlando within hours of the storm´ss passing. With enemies like these, we are especially grateful for friends like you.
On my side, the north side, of Lake Pontchartrain, normally idle country roads are chock-a-block. The welcomed bucket trucks of out-of-state utility repair crews have yielded to logging tandems giving an afterlife to countless downed pine trees, and to gravel trucks teeming with seemingly endless debris, Throw in the estimated 150,000 new arrivals, mostly quartered with kith and kin, in a parish of 200,000 residents pre-Katrina and logjam is both our literal and metaphorical state.
For the first month post-hurricane, the buzz of generators and the smell of diesel, punctuated with the whir of chain saws, saturated our senses. Now the truncated remains of our piney woods produce a pungent turpentine scent as they await collection.
Wildlife has not escaped the scourge either. Owls hoot at noon and roosters crow at dusk. A handwritten sign on the highway seeks help in finding a missing bull. The frequent visits of hawks and herons are now much less so as are those of the deer and turkey that customarily come to the edge of the now-gutted woods. The punctual fall migration of monarch butterflies has altered course this year to our exclusion. Reports of sharks in the New Orleans sewerage system proved to be urban myth, but shrimp and crabs really did show up surviving in rice fields.
If Dostoevsky was right when he wrote that the world would be saved by beauty, there is reason to be hopeful here. The singularity of South Louisiana´ss natural spell survives and keeps its hold on all of us who choose to stay here.
Our amateur zeal in the world of charitable disbursement is tempered by our lack of professional experience. We have distributed your contributions in two ways. First we have given direct aid to individuals both in kind and in cash. These distributions have been made as a result of interviews either by Rice, Voelker members or relief professionals. Second we have made cash gifts to numerous charitable organizations whose work on behalf of Katrina victims is well known to us.
Much of our population lives at the economic margin in the best of times. The financial and psychological depression wrought by sudden homelessness and/or job loss has tested the most stalwart of this state´s working poor. The good news is the difference your generosity has made. Most of the direct grants to individuals have been less than $2000, but without fail have made the difference between hope and despair. Following in no special order is a summary of the spending so far. The amount given to each charity is in parentheses:
CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS:
PROJECT INDEPENDENCE ($5000) is the only organization in Southeastern Louisiana dedicated to families with autistic children. The complexity of this disorder is exacerbated by the stress of displacement. This charity has provided needed guidance and financial support to families with autistic members. CATHOLIC CHARITIES ($5000) and JEWISH FAMILY SERVICES ($5000) both have established valuable stations in our area to directly aid victims with food, shelter, and counseling. LIFELINE ($3000) is the only source of free, court-ordered counseling for problems associated with drugs, alcohol, and anger in St. Tammany Parish. The program is a ministry of the Covington Presbyterian Church. COVINGTON FOOD BANK ($3000) is a source of free food and clothing. ALL SAINTS MEDICAL CLINIC ($3000) provides free medical and dental services from volunteer professionals. NOAH´sS WISH ($2000) evacuates and shelters animals after natural disasters. This charity reunited hundreds of pets with their owners after Katrina. FRIENDS OF NEW ORLEANS MOUNTED POLICE ($1000) helps underwrite the cost of care of horses used by NOPD´ss mounted police. They are especially important for Mardi Gras. THE GOOD SHEPHERD SCHOOL ($5000), a tuition free elementary school for inner-city youth, is the creation of the late Harry Thompson, S.J., principal of Jesuit High School. Father Thompson was a man of uncommon charisma who was also the leading force behind BOY´sS HOPE GIRL´sS HOPE ($5000). The latter provides both housing and education for children without families. DESIRE STREET ACADEMY ($5000), located in the lower Ninth Ward, was started and is directed by former New Orleans Saints´s quarterback, Danny Wuerfel. All three schools were enjoying great success before Katrina´ss wrath and will reopen. PENNIES FOR BREAD ($5000) is a fifteen-year-old service of the monks of St. Joseph´ss Abbey, an ante-bellum Benedictine Monastery in Covington. The monks make daily deliveries of their fresh-baked breads without charge to kitchens and food banks of all denominations serving food to the poor in New Orleans. TIPITINA´sS FOUNDATION ($2000) is dedicated to aiding artists, particularly musicians, in returning to New Orleans by providing assistance with housing and employment. OZANAM INN ($5000) is the oldest homeless shelter in New Orleans. The MARINE CORPS DOLL AND TOY FUND ($2000) is a valuable source of Christmas gifts for disadvantaged children in New Orleans.
INDIVIDUALS:
When the Folsom Community Center was converted into a Red Cross shelter shortly after Katrina, FEMA was nowhere and the Red Cross was without many needed resources. The fund provided blankets and pillows as well as deliveries of meals from McDonald´ss and Domino´ss when only MRE´ss were available.
Most residents had their belongings in garbage bags; the fund purchased 65 sets of black rolling luggage (5 piece sets @ $48.42 from Wal-Mart) and 65 large Rubbermaid bins. Two licensed stylists gave haircuts at the Folsom Shelter to residents. 50 adults and 15 children had access to free haircuts offered on a Sunday afternoon and a Tuesday evening. (Cost was less than $6 a cut).
TOMMY N. - This East Texas carpenter was doing relief work post-Katrina when his home was destroyed by Hurricane Rita. He was in the shelter because his transmission failed while attempting to return home. The fund paid for repairs to his truck and provided travel funds. Total expenditure less than $1000.
KATIE AND JUSTIN W, AND 1 YEAR OLD BABY GIRL JUNIE- Young couple with apartment in New Orleans. Refrigerator ruined and not covered by renter insurance. Major uninsured losses and still no gas, but gift of $1000 got them one step closer to moving back in. Using the money to buy a dorm size refrigerator, toaster oven, and hotplate.
DIXIE C, NEWBORN SON, 11 YEAR OLD BOY, 8 YEAR OLD GIRL- Premature baby born 2 weeks before hurricane Katrina. Fund delivered formula with iron, bottles, nipples, preemie newborn clothes, and $1000 toward home repairs.
JEAN AND GLENN F, PARENTS OF 14 AND 8 YEAR OLD FROM ST. BERNARD PARISH- Lost everything in home and possessions, currently living with another family in a small house in Abita. $1000 donation will go toward a down payment on a home under $100,000.
ERIC G FROM METAIRIE- lost everything but his job. Fund gift covered 6 months rent for an apartment ($700 per month) in Metairie enabling him to leave the shelter and resume working.
DOUG N. - man who was homeless before the storm, then living in Folsom shelter with a heart condition but seeking work. Fund provided work boots, 4 pairs of pants, 4 shirts, men´ss toiletries, backpack and duffel bag. Also bought him a used car and new tires. Total expenditure about $2500.
SHIRLEY R, MOTHER WITH 3 TEENAGE DAUGHTERS AND BEDRIDDEN MOTHER- Currently employed at Target in Covington; home destroyed but found a trailer for rent. Gift of $1,200 took care of her rent for 3 months and gets her out of the shelter. She did get money from FEMA, and put that money toward her car note and expenses from past rent.
OFFICER KEVIN THOMAS- The fund sent $2500 to this brave NOPD officer who was seriously injured while successfully foiling a band of armed looters.
DIXIE C- She and her husband lost their auto repair business in St. Bernard. The fund contributed $1000 to help them in restarting on the North Shore.
JAMES McG. - The fund gave $1000 to this retired Irish priest whose cottage and belongings in Waveland, Miss. disappeared in total after the storm.
DIANNE M and TERRI R. - Gifts of $1000 and $1500 respectively were given to these single mothers, both of whom are shift managers at the Covington McDonald´ss. Both lost their homes in the storm and money was used for rent deposits on new accommodations.
THOMAS R. - Kenner resident whose uninhabitable home forced him into the shelter. We found him commuting (100 miles per day) in a rental car to his job as a driver with an ice company. We purchased a $3000 used truck for him and also provided 3 months free occupancy in a $20,000 "FEMA type" trailer the fund purchased. If and when he receives a FEMA trailer, the fund´ss vehicle will be made available to another party.
DALE L- Widowed Grandmother who works a $15,000 per year position at Abita Springs Elementary School. Entire life savings was exhausted purchasing a used trailer for daughter, son-in-law (Slidell policeman), two children, and herself to live in after losing all in the storm. Fund gift of $10,000 to the family will enable them to rebuild on previous homesite.
FRANCES W.- Honor student from New Orleans Center for Math and Science High School on full scholarship at Northwestern (La.) University. Family lost everything in their Ninth Ward home that they owned. Gift of $2000 got Frances a plane ticket to visit her family, now in Lafayette, as well as clothes.
The foregoing does not include every person helped but is a representative cross-section. You have probably noticed a wide disparity in the amounts given. This is largely due to our receiving significant, unanticipated gifts to the fund after grants had been made on a smaller budget. Where possible we intend to follow up with recipients of smaller gifts who might be deserving of further help.
At this writing, contributions to the Recovery Fund total $209,750.00. Total distributions approximate $115,000 to date. We anticipate a major purchase soon of several home sites (pending availability) which we intend to donate at closing to Habitat for Humanity.
Some have proclaimed a new dawn for New Orleans. If we are squinting a bit into that good day, we also have reason to greet it. Over 350 New Orleans restaurants have reopened and the number climbs daily. People are clamoring to get into New Orleans not looking for a ticket out. Of the 35 Mardi Gras Krewe´ss that paraded last year, 30 have applied for permits for the forthcoming Carnival season. The Audubon Zoo and the National D-Day Museum are open and the Symphony is back. The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is on for next spring at its usual venue, the Fair Grounds Race Track. Churchill Downs, the track´ss owner, has pledged to rebuild bigger and better combining the appeal of the festival and thoroughbred racing into a diverse entertainment center.
At inception, we pledged to you that 100% of your gift would find its way to either charities serving those hurt by Katrina or to the victims themselves. Our ability to deliver on that pledge is in great part attributable to volunteer capital. Our firm compliance officer, Hubert Daigle, has researched charities and is keeping the books. Pete Burkhalter is our source for legal counsel and Steve Bellaire is providing accounting services. A special thanks is due Rachel Lambert (wife of firm partner, Dalton). Rachel has spent many hours interviewing potential recipients as well as delivering goods and services to fund clients.
A few Saturday´ss ago I visited the Folsom Community Center that has served as a Red Cross Shelter. A local Church was providing a barbecue lunch for the residents. The Church´ss gospel choir was performing with great energy. The finale was a rousing rendition of "You can´st get to heaven if your heart ain´st right." Whether your idea of heaven is eternal reward or the satisfaction gained from a just life, those words hold truth. By making it possible for the Fund for Recovery to help so many good people damaged by Hurricane Katrina, you proved your hearts are right. For that we thank you very much.
Sincerely Yours,
Tim Rice
March 6, 2006
Dear Friend,
"Traumaticalized" said Mac Rebenneck after driving through the Lakeview and Ninth Ward sections following Katrina. Rebenneck is better known as Dr. John, the night-tripping master of the New Orleans´s brand of funk. His was an apt word coinage for the state in which our entire community finds itself.
We Katriniacs (my term) are like a boxer in the midst of a standing eight count, legs wobbling, waiting for the opponent to come better into focus. The rebuild and recover instinct remains deeply planted in the psyche of our citizens both placed and displaced. At times to many, the barriers to executing that instinct seem insurmountable.
The hardened locals though learned early on to dismiss the exaggerated claims of help from Washington. There was never a moment when anyone here thought that Brownie was doing a heckuva job. The gross underperformance of FEMA in delivering the trailers promised (to date about 31,000 of 69,000) is but one example.
In Baton Rouge most efforts at reform met the expected end during the recent special session. But the politics of Byzantium paused long enough to send a constitutional amendment to voters that will reduce the number of levee boards from nine to two (one would have been better) and to populate the boards with engineers and scientists who might actually possess expertise on levee design. Levee boards have been our actual and mythological Hydra dispensing no-bid contracts and other political largesse through a feudal network of cronied-up hacks. Change is coming.
The biggest hand up for most Louisianians is coming from neighbors and charities. Your contribution to the Rice Voelker Fund for Recovery is of great help in knocking down the wall of despair with which so many have collided.
When we receive word of people needing assistance, invariably the summary of their situation begins with the telling phrase "lost everything." For most of these the lack of housing is the major obstacle to normalizing their lives. We have long admired the Habitat for Humanity conceptually and closer examination of its efforts here has confirmed those feelings. Habitat has a development underway in Covington (Hope Village) that when complete will provide residential ownership to 15 families. This is affordable housing at its best. Habitat delivers a newly built, three bedroom home for $63,000. Owners earn their down payments through sweat equity and receive a zero interest mortgage at closing. The fund contributed $25,000 to Habitat after we were unsuccessful in finding suitable undeveloped property to purchase. Additionally the fund will purchase washers and dryers for all the homes in Hope Village.
Covenant House is the largest privately-funded childcare agency in the United States providing shelter and service to homeless and runaway youth. Since Katrina, the New Orleans Chapter, located on the edge of the French Quarter, has had to also serve as a substitute for other services that have been suspended. The fund has given $10,000 to Covenant House.
The actions of a very small minority of New Orleans Policemen have overshadowed the dedication and bravery of most members of that department as well as of the fire department during the crisis following Katrina. Eighty per cent of NOPD and NOFD members lost their homes. Hundreds of them were quartered in a cruise ship that left this week. They are now in hotel rooms with a two week limit. The fund has contributed $5000 each to emergency relief funds established for police and fire department members.
Given the growth in the number of people the fund has helped, we will only highlight a few recent situations. But you have our assurance that they are typical of the recipients your gift has reached:
Chad Robertson operates a mobile car wash service. He lost his van and has been commuting from Baton Rouge with his father who lends him his car while at work. Chad had $2000 in savings toward a replacement vehicle. A gift of $2000 from the fund will make that purchase affordable for him.
Mark Kennedy has worked as a delivery man for Moss Antiques for over twenty years. His wife and two kids are in Houston and the fund is providing rent for him in New Orleans until the family can be reunited here when the kids´s school reopens.
Monica Julien is a nurse at Ochsner Hospital and a single mom of three children. Her house was totally destroyed by the storm (awaiting a decision from her insurance company) and she is waitlisted for a FEMA trailer. She lost her hotel accommodation earlier this month. The fund is helping her with the cost of her interim housing.
Joseph Crutti is the new occupant of the Fund trailer, the previous gentleman having finally received his FEMA trailer. Joseph has been waiting since October for his FEMA trailer. His home in St. Bernard was completely flooded and is a total loss. He does construction work in New Orleans and has been living on the site where he has been working so our trailer will look like the Hilton.
John Fontenot is a waiter at Galatoire´ss Restaurant and a recent widower. He is a lovely man who has maintained his cheerfulness despite not only having his home in St. Bernard flooded but also contaminated by the spill from the Murphy Oil Refinery. John is commuting four hours a day to his job from a relative´ss home in Hammond.
The Alfred Leanne Family was moving into their new home in Arabi (St. Bernard Parish) the weekend that Katrina arrived. They are attempting to restore their home that received ten feet of flood water. Mrs. Leanne remains evacuated in Dallas with their children until the end of the school year.
Lois Martin is a seventy two year old Lower Ninth Ward home owner who is so determined to make her flooded home livable that she is living in the one room sanitized so far, without electricity. No other house in her block is occupied. Ms. Martin is a widow and a retired medical worker living on social security.
Lafitte is a small fishing village in lower Jefferson Parish that was hammered by both Katrina and Rita. The fund has helped two families there:
Pearl Wynman is the mother of two firemen in Crown Point and resides in a severely damaged trailer in Lafitte. Both Pearl and her husband are undergoing cancer treatment and have only her husband´ss social security as an income source.
Ella Hebert is a 78 year-old living solely on social security that also has to contribute to care for her husband Eddie, who is institutionalized with Alzheimer´ss. She and her daughter had their trailers swamped. They returned home last week after delivery of FEMA trailers.
New Orleans is on the mend in many ways. Our convention center has reopened as has Harrah´ss downtown casino. Yesterday, the New Orleans Museum of Art welcomed visitors for the first time since the storm. The back-in-business restaurant count is now at 535 and climbing daily. Amazingly the owner of the New Orleans Saints has experienced a Scroogian epiphany and pledged to honor his commitment to the Superdome through 2010. Round the clock work on the dome should have it ready for the start of this fall´ss season. Though reduced somewhat in size, the Jazzfest will proceed on schedule. Most here agreed with the decision to proceed with a compact version of Mardi Gras. The result was a much needed psychological and financial fillip for our community.
On the Northside of Lake Pontchartrain (St. Tammany Parish), most economic indicators speak of recovery. But forestry experts estimate that St. Tammany lost over 200 years of commercial hardwood growth and 41 years of pine harvest. Plunging prices, jammed sawmills, and overwhelmed loggers mean that much of the deadfall will go unharvested. This is bad news ecologically and economically for our second largest industry.
But there is good news here as well. The February arrival of robins and cardinals has been as sudden and punctual as ever. The always anticipated winter strawberry crop is nothing short of sublime this year. That is great news for April's Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival. Remember, tourism is still our principal lifeline to recovery.
Displaced St. Bernard Parish residents, anxious to return, have registered for e-mail updates on the parish´ss website from 38 states. Most are living with family members or close friends (to borrow from Woody Guthrie) "from California, to the New York Island, from the redwood forest, to the Gulf stream waters." That those most iconoclastic citizens in the New Orleans composite have found solace so far from home shows this country does have a lot of unum left in its e pluribus.
Your decision to support this recovery fund is similarly noteworthy. Without a single solicitation, we have received $400,750 in gifts. To date we have disbursed $278,950 to 51 individuals or families and 28 charitable organizations. Our bank balance stands at $136,800.
In her poignant memoir, "The Year of Magical Thinking," the author, Joan Didion, writes "Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant."aSS Katrina showed us how true that is in the worst possible way. Your generosity to those whose lives were shattered by that experience shows how true that can also be in the best possible way. On behalf of all Katriniacs, again our most sincere thanks.
Sincerely Yours,
Tim Rice