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Projects & Project Ideas for the B’nai Israel Hurricane Relief Committee,
Baton Rouge, LA
Report of: January 22, 2006. By Rick Weil, chair
About the Committee
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Our formation. The Hurricane Relief Committee was established by
unanimous vote of the B’nai Israel (Baton Rouge, LA) board of trustees in the
days after Hurricane Katrina to provide immediate and on-going help to those
affected by the storm, whether in our own Jewish community or in the wider
community.
Our perspective. We are oriented to immediate needs, but especially toward
on-going or long-term needs of those affected by the hurricanes. We seek,
where possible, to help recipients make it through emergency situations, but
also to provide investments that will continue to pay off and multiply. We
seek to help build community for strength. And we seek to build good ties
both within the Jewish community and between the Jewish community and
other communities. We apply our backgrounds and training to these ends.
Our budget and resources have included about $70,000 to $80,000 in
money and gift cards, and we have received several 18-wheeler truckloads of
goods to distribute. We currently have about $40,000 left to disburse.
o We recognize and acknowledge that as committee members, we are
mostly not the source, but rather the stewards of the contributed
money and goods. We take this delegation seriously as an honor and
a privilege.
We want to do limited and targeted fund-raising for certain projects (see
below).
The committee includes a sociologist, a businessman, a CPA, a social
worker, a couple nurses, several educators, and an interior designer.
We welcome the input of congregation members and Rabbi in our work.
Completed Projects (past)
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We have provided funds to individual people and families in need. The
usual amounts have been about $200-$400, depending on circumstances.
We’ve disbursed several thousand dollars this way. (See thank-you card,
appended.)
We have provided funds to whole communities in need. In particular, we
gave $100 Walmart gift cards to each of 70 Vietnamese evacuee families (=
$7,000), mostly from New Orleans East, staying at the St. Anthony’s parish
shelter in Baton Rouge. Don M helped develop the contact, and Rick W
partnered with one of his students, who was living at the shelter with her
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family. Committee members shared dinner with the community on several
occasions and built valuable ties between our communities.
We have distributed (and dealt with!) approximately 20,000 pounds of
goods, donated from around the country – sometimes as fully-loaded 18wheelers. Bob S was primarily responsible for this enormous effort, utilizing
his warehouse space, colleagues, and trucks to move these goods to shelters
and others in need. (See Bob’s description, appended.)
We made several gifts to teachers for teaching supplies, because there
was often not enough to go around for the increased enrollment of evacuated
students – and teachers!
We have partnered with the Jewish Community Partnership, a partnership
of the Baton Rouge and New Orleans Jewish communities, which is
specifically helping Jews with needs arising from the hurricanes. The national
Jewish communities have collected upwards of $28 million for hurricane relief,
and a good deal of this is being channeled through the JCP locally, targeted
toward Jewish recipients. When the JCP receives requests from non-Jews,
which fall outside their mandate, they have forwarded them to us for action.
Our committee has been very fortunate that Celia V, a licensed social worker,
has done intake and evaluation of these requests, so that we can disburse
funds, confident in the knowledge that the requests are based on legitimate
needs. We have disbursed several thousand dollars in this fashion, again
usually in $200-$400 amounts.
All these projects are potentially renewable and on-going.
On-Going Projects (present)
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Work with the Baton Rouge Faith Leaders, a city/parish-wide ad-hoc group
of leaders from faith-based organizations, led by Pastor Robin McCulloughBade, that meets every week. This group identifies community needs and
proposes solutions that churches, synagogues, and other bodies can help
with. Rick (from B’nai), Celia (JCP) & others have been attending the weekly
meetings for several months.
Work with the Red Cross, FEMA, State, and other agencies to identify
needs that they cannot or do not cover, where we can be of service.
Project Ideas (future)
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Safe gathering places in the Trailer parks with coffee & newspapers,
magazines, & children’s books.
 This initiative will reflect the Jewish values of education,
community/family, safety, and comfort
 Partner with congregations around the country to fund this. They could
place stickers in the books showing the contributors
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Partner with Community Coffee (or other) and subscription services to
make the funding go further.
Develop a book of emergency procedures, of what to do, whom to contact
in the event of another emergency. This book could also include a list of:
Doctors, Veterinarians, Carpenters, People with generators, People with
specific skills, What not to do. [Bob S’s idea]
Develop our annual Mitzvah Day to include new needs. [Wendy’s idea]
Partner with Faith-Based Groups, many of them identified through the
Baton Rouge Faith Leaders group (see above). Potential examples include:
 A Ministry in the Treme Center, New Orleans.
 Several Community Development Corporations (CDCs) in Baton
Rouge.
 Several African-American churches in Baton Rouge.
 We have developed several potential partnering contacts in each case.
 We seek to develop opportunities for youth groups, and others, who
want to come to south Louisiana and do direct relief work.
Our thanks go out 
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To those who have contributed money and goods and services that we
have been disbursing.
To our committee members.
To those who have worked with our committee.
To the Jewish Federations of Baton Rouge and Greater New Orleans,
together with the Jewish Community Partnership. Special thanks go to the
people who organized the enormous rescue efforts in the days after the
storm, and continuing efforts since then.
To the Rabbis and the congregation at our sister synagogue, Beth
Shalom, Baton Rouge. We also send them our special solidarity and love
for their own losses in hurricane Rita.
Members of our own congregation, who have borne the main burdens of
helping family, friends, loved ones, community members – and complete
strangers – who were affected by the disasters, and who have contributed
so much money and effort in the aftermath of the storms.
Our own Rabbi, and his family, who have gone beyond the call and given
so much of themselves, done so much for others, and provided so much
spiritual and emotional strength to our congregation and our wider
community.
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Appendix.
One sample thank-you card of many, many, we have received.
“Dear Friends,
Our families were touched by your generosity. The Walmart gift cards allowed us
to purchase things we really needed, which our budgets didn’t allow. God bless
you 100 times over for your blessings to us.”
Like many people we have helped, these families were homeowners who lost
everything. Others we have helped have been poor or well-to-do, disabled or
sick, and people who have lost family or loved-ones.
Bob S’s description of receiving and disbursing about 20,000 pounds of
goods.
The other mission that we had, distribution of relief supplies was an
equally difficult task. If you think giving away money is hard, try giving away
clothes. We had been donated approximately 20,000 pounds of material from
individuals around the country, a Synagogue in Cleveland, Ohio and a member’s
workplace (Wall-Mart) in Erie Pennsylvanian. The goods from the synagogue in
Cleveland arrived neatly palletized on 20 shrink wrapped pallets. Each of the
boxes was nicely marked, “women’s clothes”, “Toiletries”, “diapers”, “toys”, you
get the idea. The 40 ft truck from Pennsylvania was stacked from the floor to the
ceiling with stuff. We threw away a full dumpster load of used stuffed animals. It
took 5 people 4 hours to unload the truck and dozens of hours to sort things out.
These goods went to individuals, Church groups, a free community store in
Gonzales, prerelease women at St. Gabriels Prison, a halfway house in Baton
Rouge and one in Gonzales. When we ran out of places to give things to we
opened the doors at one of the committee members business and allowed
families to “go shopping”. We even took load to the Cajun dome in Lafayette to
help the people in there and were nearly turned away. These are to name only a
few of the places and people helped by donations. Again the story was the
same, “we lost everything”. Serving on this committee has been a learning
experience and an honor. We have learned to help ourselves by helping others
who are in need. We have been in touch with that synagogue in Cleveland and
they are willing to send more donations. We will take this up with them at a later
dated if there is still a need for goods.