Thank You

Wow... I really can't believe how much money was raised yesterday at our Disaster Relief Drive! Words can't even describe it. Last year we raised $180,000 after Hurricane Ivan. Yesterday the Red Cross stopped counting at $850,000 dollars and that's BEFORE the donation from Lowe's. Amazing!

Yesterday I met a couple of people from the hard hit areas. The first guy I met was on his way to Biloxi to help build back part of his family's home. He stopped by to thank everyone for helping. As soon as he pulled his truck up to Lowe's, I knew had been affected. He had a Harrison County, MS car tag and had a lot of supplies in the bed of his truck. He seemed like a great guy!

The second person was a lady from St. Bernards Parrish. This is a suburb of New Orleans and one that hasn't been shown much on television. Most of the sites you have seen on TV are in the city of New Orleans. This lady wanted to thank us for the Relief Drive and ask us if we could find out anything about her home. She had tears in her eyes... she said that her house was definitely under water, and that there may have been an oil spill in her neighborhood to make the cleanup even worse for later. All I could do was hug her and assure her that we are praying for her.

To see people that will benefit from all this money was rewarding, yet sad at the same time. The emotional swing that I felt was odd. I guess it is really something else that words can't describe.

Ryan
rvaughan@wsfa.com

PS- You may have noticed my sunburn this morning... if I could get burned by helping to raise that much money again... I would do it everyday!