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First, I want to thank you for your response to the Katrina (now also Rita) Mobile Phone Project.

Through your generosity, we will be able to get mobile phones into the hands of the most in-need victims of these huricanes and the volunteers who are assisting them. The phones will be place through Care for Elders/Sheltering Arms in Houston through program director Jan Edwards.

The first shipment of phones is on its way to Houston, thanks to the generosity of AIRMEDIA, which donated 60 pre-paid phones to the project.

You can still contribute to the project in one of two ways:

1. You can donate a mobile phone(s), with or without pre-paid service. We are collecting phones at the Guidewire Group office and plan to send a second shipment late next week.

2. You can donate money to purchase phones and/or pre-paid service plans. Checks can be made to “Big Bark Publishing,” noting “Katrina Phone Project” in the memo field. Donations can be sent to the Guidewire Group office.

The address at Guidewire Group is:

Chris Shipley

Katrina Phone Project

Guidewire Group LLC

600 Townsend Street, Suite 120e

San Francisco, CA 94103

To give you a sense of how much impact these phones will have on the lives of those affected by these storms, let me share with you a message I received from Jan this morning.

Cell phones were literally our lifelines at the Dome and other sites at “Reliant City.” The frail elders we were working with were not able to access phones like the other evacuees. It’s difficult to describe how many and insurmountable the barriers were in that setting for our folks. . . It was problematic for us trying to find and help them. We were on foot between all three far-flung sites in teams, and this is where the phones became invaluable. We used them to talk to each other, to locate elders who had been repeatedly relocated or had wandered, and to talk to our home base for resource information. They allowed us to call for nurses and doctors to come to the cot of an elder who needed immediate attention. We used them to set up arrangements for placement, or transportation to hospitals, or other appointments. We used them to talk to shelter staff to arrange for services and wheel-chairs and the like. We used them to try to locate family members who had become separated at the complex, and to reconnect them with family elsewhere. We were able to find out the status of family members for our elders who had no other means of reaching them to find out if they weres safe. Many had gone through the entire disaster without knowing if their nearest and dearest had even survived. I used them to connect a lone elder with family members in Alabama, and to arrange for him to get home to some friends safely. Our volunteers were most generous with their personal phones and their minutes, but there were times when they didn’t have them, or whatever, and having the four donated phones we did have made so much more possible for us to accomplish.

Now, we are challenged to provide service for those elders who remain in temporary shelter or permanent housing, scattered throughout the county. We plan to do case management on site for them in a variety of settings, but we will have, I believe, similar needs for communication among the workers and volunteers, and to connect to community services and other informational resources. As generous as this donation is, it may be that we can provide them directly to the seniors for their own ongoing use. They have been placed in different housing situations in a strange city and have many unmet needs to deal with in the long term, as well as safety concerns. There are situations and needs that are emerging as I type this and try to answer my phone, for which I am sure the donated phones will make helping possible.

On behalf of everyone we serve, and all of us at Care for Elders, we send our gratitude.

Sincerely,

Jan Edwards, LCSW