A few weeks agoI wrote that I was hoping to head to Iowa to do some volunteering in Cedar Rapids with Hands On Disaster Response (HODR). I love volunteering with this group and I was hoping to get a chance to work with them again sooner, rather than later. I think their plan was to pull a bunch of professional builders (volunteers) together with a bunch of wannabees like me to help out with rebuilding in the flood-damaged community.

Well that project has been postponed until the Spring so it looks like Iowa is out. But with all the disasters in the Pacific and southeast Asia, it looks like there could be another opportunity for me to get into some more disaster relief work. HODR have sent a team to American Samoa to see if they can hel pout at all after the tsunami there. They’ve also already assessed The Philippines but given that much of the damaged ares are still under water, there’s not a lot they can do just yet.

So the assessment team has moved on from The Philippines to Indonesia and they arrived in earthquake-damaged Padang today. Myself and other HODR alumni are anxiously waiting for the word that a project is being launched. It’s ridiculous, there are about 15 people that I know of that will be there in an instant and I’m one of them.

So Iowa is out but I’m hoping HODR will launch a project in Indonesia because, even though it’s nowhere near on the way to Africa (my next stop), I love working with those guys. So for the moment I’m checking the site daily, following them on Twitter and hoping the $515 flight from New York to Jakarta (via Alaska!) stays that price for another few weeks.

Check out their site if you’re interested in knowing more about their South Pacific Emergency Appeal and possibly helping out.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Trackback URI | Comments RSS