volunteers

Today we gather with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. As we reflect on what we have and what we are thankful for, our thoughts go out to the many thousands of families who are still suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Our project started out this year with a goal to encourage volunteers who have traveled to the region to share their stories and in so doing, spur others to travel to the region as Katrina volunteers. None of this could have taken place without the help and dedication of each and every one of you.

www.projectkatrinavolunteers.net the Website, and www.traveltelevision.org, the television series, started this year and continues to grow through volunteer efforts. Check out these sites if you have not visited them recently. Watch the latest stories of Katrina region volunteers as we continue to spread the message about power of volunteerism.

Thank you for your continued support

My part in the Project: Aditya Kolhekar

Over the summer I was given an awarding opportunity to make people aware of the problems New Orleans still has because of Hurricane Katrina and to get people to volunteer in the places that need it most.My part in this project was to create a website, along with other people, inform the public about the state of New Orleans using the media, and help to make some of the shows that were aired on August 29th. First, the website. What I had to do for this part of the project was to find simplistic, elegant web templates to set the base for our website, as well as upload some data into the website when it was finished using,what is called, file transfer protocol (FTP). Another part of the project that I was involved in was to find good public media sources to air our show. This was very hard because people in the media can be very stubborn and usually do not return emails and phone calls, which can get a little bothersome. A helpful site that was given to me in order to find public media sources was http://ourchannels.org/alpha.htm, so if you want to use public media that's a good site. The last thing that I had to do for this project was to help make the show (traveltelevision.org) by making the credits, being the CG (character generator) operator (which puts all the pictures on the screen), and being a cameraman on our live show on the 29th of August. Our goal for this project was to involve people in the healing process of New Orleans and help people realize that New Orleans still needs a lot of volunteer help. This experience was very fulfilling and I hope that it got a lot of people to help in some way, shape or form.

My Part in Creating TravelTelevison.org: Elyse

A wise man once said, "Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something." In the first week of my sophomore year in high school, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the American Gulf Coast, destroying large portions of the region and submerging the city of New Orleans. I followed the path of this deadly storm via several news sources. The summer before my senior year, I continued to follow Katrina's path by interning for TravelTelevision.org. During this internship, I helped tell the story of Hurricane Katrina through new eyes: those of the volunteers.

As the Head Writer on this project, I helped promote www.ProjectKatrinaVolunteers.net, a website on which individuals or groups who have traveled to the Gulf Coast during the last two years can share their stories. Since the hurricane, over 500,000 volunteers have traveled to the devastated region to spend their vacation time assisting the rebuilding efforts. Sadly, the volunteer efforts in the Gulf Coast are diminishing, despite the fact that volunteers are still needed for another five to ten years.

Working on the Katrina Project was very meaningful to me because it allowed me to work for an important cause and bring to light the stories of important people who had been otherwise unnoticed in the recovery process of Hurricane Katrina. I enjoyed utilizing my writing skills and acquainting myself with several different styles of writing, such as press releases and blog entries. It is very gratifying to make an impact in solving a world problem. I hope this project will inspire others to volunteer their time to help others in their immediate and global communities, just as it has inspired me.

Elyse

My part in creating TravelTelevision.org: Alex

This summer I had the opportunity to work for a volunteer group, TravelTelevision.org. For this project, I helped locate sites to send press releases to as well as look for potential designs for the site. For the first part, I initially looked at college newspapers. The goal of this was to send the message to college students, who are one of the groups most likely to volunteer. After that I searched for press release sites and media contact lists. Some press release sites I found were http://www.prleap.com/, http://www.pr.com/, http://www.free-press-release.com/, and http://www.openpr.com/. A media contact list I found was at http://www.fair.org and included the email addresses for many news organizations. After this part of the project we searched for website templates to model the site after. I found some interesting designs at http://www.templateyes.com.To build the site, four of us worked with a mentor to create the various components of the site. On August 29, we were able to go to the TV studio and see the premiere of Travel Television. The experience was very fun and interesting and I am very glad I joined in.

Alex

My Part in Creating TravelTelevison.org: Roxana

Hello!

I am one of the students from Churchill who helped create
TravelTelevison.org. I specifically worked on the Blogs portion. I searched for websites that were about Hurricane Katrina and spoke of the volunteers. I found that CommonGroundRelief.org and HandsonGulfCoast.org would be the best to try and link with for ProjectKatrinaVolunteers.com. I also helped set up the blog account on Blogger.com (KatrinaVolunteers.blogspot.com). The process did not take long at all. We looked at various Blog Hosting sites and found that BlogSpot is one of the best. All we did was enter our e-mail, choose a password and user name, then a URL name for the site; that's all it took - and the best part is that it's ready when you are. The main reason we thought that a blog account would be appropriate is one: many people use blogs to communicate with others and comment on issues they believe in; two: it's efficient and what you say can be out on the web in less than one minute. At KatrinaVolunteers.blogspot.com, those who are volunteering and we who helped set up the site, can blog about our experiences and share anything that can be done to help in the Gulf Coast. I learned a lot from this experience and I will continue to help with the websites. I hope those who have visited our sites and have seen the videos also learned that there is a lot that still needs to be done in the Gulf Coast.

Thanks for Your Support,

Roxana

Katrina Volunteer Promo 1

Volunteers speak about how much help is actually needed.

KatrinaVolunteers Promo

Here is a video of one person who lost her home to Katrina