Sea Scout Quartermaster candidate helps with Hurricane Ike relief

From our incoming email:

My friend, Eagle Scout Chris Bergtholdt, is organizing his Quartermaster Sea Scout service project for the children of Hurricane Ike, and I want to ask you to lend a hand.

When I worked with Hurricane Katrina evacuees in 2005 I learned that the hardest thing about being displaced isn't the loss of belongings but the loss of family stability. Keeping families together is the most critical thing in a crisis, and nothing brings a family together and helps mend traumatized feelings of security like the time spent reading to children.

The Galveston area was hardest hit by Ike, and there are thousands of people looking forward to long-term FEMA housing and a long period of uncertainty. Area residents have lost everything. They need to give their children a sense of safety and stability, and parents need to feel like parents after the loss of everything they own. In order to give the parents in Galveston shelters the tools they need to keep their families together, Chris is fervently networking with people all over the country to collect children's books.

Please look at home for children's books, or buy some new ones at your local store, and send them to the address below. Don't be afraid to include a personal message to the children who will read them. Let them know that they aren't alone.

*Families in need...
c/o Clara Barton Village
Alamo Elementary School
5200 Avenue N
Galveston, Texas 77550*

And please spread this message far and wide. If you're like me you probably hate the forward button on your friends' email programs but the more people who read this message the more good we can do together.

You will be helping parents and children - survivors all - to see that their lives are not on hold, that they are alive and well and living together, even if they are struggling, and that it is still a good time to dream.

God bless you and yours,


George Oldroyd, Skipper
Sea Scout Ship 48
Fairfax, Virginia