City coordinating relief plan for Katrina victims

The residents of Bloomington have been doing their part the past two weeks to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Residents have been buying Red Cross wristbands and volunteering to help, and now Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan has decided the city will do its part by donating $15,000 to various charities and coordinating volunteers throughout the city.\nThe Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity and the Monroe County Hurricane Relief Fund, which will assist evacuees coming to Bloomington, will receive $5,000 each.\nThe Monroe County chapter of the Red Cross is helping Katrina victims both in Bloomington and other shelters nationwide. Besides the regular activity of collecting blood donations, the Red Cross is also training people in disaster relief to help in areas where it is most needed.\nAt least four local Red Cross volunteers -- Cathy Hill, Joseph McCune, Shirley Scherschel and Bethany Murray -- are already in the disaster area. The Red Cross is having a training session Saturday and Sunday for others who want to help either in the Gulf Coast or in Bloomington.\nApproximately 70 evacuees are already in Bloomington and registered with the Red Cross, said Bet Savich, coordinator of the City of Bloomington Volunteer Network, and people and businesses are popping up everywhere to help them.\n"It's really amazing," she said. \nSavich has been busy coordinating volunteers with large organizations like the Red Cross and the United Way, but there are also many important "grassroots efforts" around the city to help the evacuees coming to Bloomington, she said.\nSeveral restaurants have offered to give evacuees free food; a laundromat will give them a free place to clean their clothes and several people have contacted Savich about holding a welcome reception. One place even offered them a free pair of shoes, she said.\nThe city is not accepting material donations right now. Instead a list is being created of what people are willing to donate. Evacuees will be contacted to see what they need, and then the need will be matched up with the correct donation.\nThe city has set up a City Hurricane Relief Hotline for people interested in donating goods or volunteering. The number is 349-3463.\nThe Monroe County Apartment Association has a list of about 100 units that apartment complexes citywide have made available to evacuees, said Travis Vencel, a board member of the association.\nAll the apartments are available on shorter leases, and the majority will have a waived or deferred deposit, he said. About 25 of them will be free for a month or two.\nAn ad hoc organization called "Adopt a Family" that will help "provide a support network for a family or individual and help them transition to Bloomington" is also being created, said Barbara Moss, one of the organizers.\nThe organization will partner a Bloomington family or group with an evacuee family or individual to help them find an apartment, get through the "red tape" of social services, drive them around and basically help them start a life in Bloomington, she said.\n"The purpose is to help them create a new home for themselves," Moss said. "It's not to have them stay in someone's bedroom."\nIn addition to the Red Cross volunteers, four Bloomington firefighters are helping evacuees in shelters across Arkansas get the Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance they need. Two more local firefighters are preparing to join their comrades. The U.S. Fire Administration put out a call for 1,000 two-person teams of career firefighters to volunteer, and three teams of Bloomington firefighters answered.\nThe third team was held back because the Bloomington Fire Department is already minus two firefighters who were called up for National Guard service, and the city could not spare the third two-person team and still adequately protect the city from fire, said BFD Chief Jeff Barlow\nBut, when one of the teams comes back, the third team is "ready and willing" to leave, he said.\nThe firefighters left Sept. 3 and will be in Arkansas for a minimum of 30 days, but Barlow said he expects the trip to be longer.\nThe firefighters are documenting what they do and see on a Web log, which can be viewed at firefighters.indiana.edu.\n"We're getting most of our information that way," Barlow said.