"I have three big dogs"

Call it fate, call it volunteer karma, call it a coincidence, but just when things are getting really challenging here on the long-term recovery front, someone comes along to lift your spirits. Tonight that someone was Paul Perez, who made delicious gumbo for the volunteers and staff of the St. Bernard Project to thank us all for working in the parish and rebuilding homes like his. He reminded us all about the first thing everyone hears at Camp Hope: You make a difference by just showing up.
He closed the evening with a story. He said, and I'm paraphrasing: "I realized after Katrina I had three big dogs — the federal government, the insurance companies and the Red Cross. None of them showed up. But you showed up and nurses showed up and a high school in upstate New York showed up. He said just weeks after the storm, a Catholic high school in New York state sent a truckload of backpacks full of school supplies down to Baton Rouge, where the Catholic school kids displaced by Katrina were restarting school (albeit at night in Baton Rouge's standing schools). This simple gesture meant the world to Paul, not just because his two school-age children needed the pencils and the books but because it was the first sign someone cared and he wasn't alone.
So much of the work down here and the spirit of the area is about showing up to show your fellow man that you care. It's really simple, but I know it is making a difference, and that is the greatest feeling in the world.