Hurricane/Homeschooler Relief Efforts

From Chicago and Texas:

The Cenacle retreat house put the family—Lee, his mother Mattie B. Lee, his wife Olgarita Lee, and children Stephen-Michael and Christopher, both 13, and Renae, 10—up for the week they spent in Chicago, and the Pasta Bowl, a neighborhood restaurant, provided a meal each day. One afternoon, the family bought new sneakers for everyone. “We only had one pair of shoes each,” Lee said.After the meeting, Lee and his family were headed back to the Houston area, where they are staying with his brother, sister-in-law and their three children. His children are being home-schooled, as they were in New Orleans—with the help of a Texas home-school bookstore, which gave them a voucher for $400 worth of materials, another blessing.“All their books were in the house,” Lee said. “We just packed for a few days. We didn’t even take any of the important papers.”

From Colorado, a 16 year old and her dad:
Feed the hungry

Alyssa, 16, said she “did a lot of cooking” in the tent kitchen, but also had time to visit with victims of the storm. Many needed a shoulder to cry on, she said.
“A lot of people seemed to open up to me because I am so young,” she said. “It was really a great experience."
A highlight of her three weeks in Mississippi was meeting President Bush when he visited the city to thank volunteers for their efforts.
Alyssa, who is home-schooled, said she would be glad to return to the Gulf Coast. Reilly said he would return “in a heartbeat.”
If he can get time off from work, Reilly said, he would go to areas damaged by Hurricane Rita if the Christ in Action team is called to assist in recovery efforts as expected.
“I believe we are put here to help other people,” he said. “I’m a Christian … and I’ve been doing this kind of work for 20 years. I just think it’s my calling to help people in any way I can.”

From Washington State:

Joni Smith’s daughters Emily, 13, and Sarah, 9, had worked on separating the donated clothes during the weekend. The girls, who are home-schooled, were at the warehouses again Monday, helping assemble wheelchairs, while other local students were still in class. Joni said the project had warranted shifting their school schedules around. “It’s kind of like a puzzle fitting the pieces together,” Joni said, sifting through boxes full of spare parts