Teams Affected by Hurricane Katrina

[Madison]

I am in favor of a focused effort to help these teams -- particularly over donating to organizations like the Red Cross. I wouldn't be surprised if their overhead was something near 20% of all donations.

For any focused effort to work, the first thing we need to learn is where the students and mentors associated with these teams are and where they plan to be in the coming months. Many people are moving to Texas, but it's just as likely that they'll relocate to northern Louisiana and Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and elsewhere. If we had people with closer ties to these teams, we might be able to piece together some of this information.

bhweezer, jdhawg -- are you in a position to provide information to us about your teammates and mentors? We can help you to contact them to learn about their condition and later, connect them with support in the FIRST community.

Lucia -- can you coordinate with teams in greater Houston, learning who might be willing to accomodate some of these displaced students? Are you familiar with teams based in New Orleans? I'm not sure where they competed last year.

There is so much we can do, but it's difficult to get started because everything is so chaotic just now. Once things settle some and we can, potentially, get some people together to organize locally, I don't think we'll have any problem placing these kids and mentors in familiar, constructive environments.