Editorial: Checking in on charitable efforts

Saturday, Nov. 26, 2005 | 7:21 a.m.

It has been three months since Hurricane Katrina forever changed the landscape of the Gulf Coast. But much of what was lost -- jobs, homes, communities -- remains lost. And, as some charitable organizations will remind us, much remains to be done.

Earlier this week members of the Best Friends Animal Society, a Utah-based charity that runs the nation's largest domestic animal sanctuary, announced they are still rescuing pets from New Orleans.

Volunteers staffing an emergency shelter outside the Crescent City accept some 40 animals per day and house up to 600 at a time. And still, more animals roam the soon-to-be razed neighborhoods foraging for food and needing rescue. But, the animal rescuers say, volunteer and financial help isn't coming as consistently as it once did.

The same likely could be said by the thousands of volunteers toiling for the charities large and small that rallied to help in the weeks immediately following the storm. Eventually, volunteers grow weary, publicity subsides and help just stops coming.

In the initial weeks of a disaster's aftermath, we are incredibly generous. We open our homes, our hearts and wallets. We host fundraisers and events. Habitat for Humanity, for example, raised more than $111 million and attracted thousands of new volunteers for relief efforts after hurricanes and Southeast Asia's tsunami. The American Red Cross' Hurricane Katrina relief effort alone could exceed $2 billion.

But we forget -- or may not realize -- that relief is simply the prelude to a goal that is harder to come by: recovery. Five months after Hurricane Andrew obliterated South Florida's coast in 1992, people were still living in makeshift tents without running water. A decade later, parts of the region still had no electricity.

Those rescuing Katrina's four-legged survivors remind us that a storm's aftermath lingers for all of its victims. And sometimes, the best help we can offer is letting these survivors know we haven't forgotten them.