.:Blended Edu:.: Education Community Responds to Hurricane Katrina

Like so many of you, I’ve been terribly upset and horrified at both the utter devastation and depth of human suffering of those hit this week by Hurricane Katrina. In particular, the images out of New Orleans have hit especially close to home.

My friend and fellow BlendedEdu co-author, MaryAnne Campo, is a native of New Orleans. Both Maryanne and her husband, Frank-John, hail from The Big Easy. We are all thankful that their family members down in New Orleans were able to escape the flooding and full wrath of Katrina.

But this is just the beginning of what will be a long process back to “normal life” for them and the hundreds of thousands of families along the Gulf Coast. If you haven’t already, please donate to the Red Cross, or other charity to help the people impacted by this storm take the first steps towards rebuilding their lives.

One of the current priorities of the Louisiana Department of Education is to set up temporary school facilities for the 135,000 school age students displaced by the storm. The goal is to get the children back into some semblance of a normal routine and keep them from falling behind in their education.

As education relief efforts become more organized and requests for specific types of education assistance (supplies, books, teaching resources) become more concrete, we will be posting them here in BlendedEdu so our readers can, if they choose, help the children and teachers in Mississippi and Louisiana.

Education Relief Efforts & Information