A Special Delivery from New York City

Mercy Corps logistician Michelle Ingham helps unload boxes of much-needed supplies from the VH1 truck. Photo: David Shafer/Mercy Corps

One month after Hurricane Katrina tore through communities along the Gulf Coast, the devastation is still striking: boats nestle in the crooks of trees; homes stripped of their walls and roofs stand exposed like dollhouses; school buses lie where they were flung.

So it was with a sense of relief that thirty local volunteers greeted the VH1/Mercy Corps “Get Up Stand Up” truck as it pulled into the red dirt parking lot of the Delisle Elementary School in Harrison County, Mississippi. The truck, a 48-foot-long trailer with “Driving To Make a Difference” splashed down its length, was driven from New York by retired New York Firefighter Clint Evans.

Delisle Elementary will absorb students from four neighboring schools destroyed by Katrina. Back To School Kits delivered by VH1 and Mercy Corps will help make that possible.

Meredith Bang, 36, Principal of the Katrina-demolished Pass Christian Elementary School looked on as the 460 school backpacks collected by the Get Up Stand Up Campaign were passed, bucket brigade-style, into the building that her students will return to in less than a week.

It will be a tough start to the school year. “No more than five or ten percent of our kids are living in their homes,” said Bang, who was herself displaced with her husband and their two young sons. They’re now living with Bang’s sister in law’s parents.

“That doesn’t make us special,” said Bang, “it just make us a part of it.”

When Principal Bang left school on Friday, August 26, she and her teaching staff left their classrooms as if for a regular weekend. The loss is still staggering. “Every day there’s something new that I realize I don’t have anymore, or something that I can’t do anymore.”

Next stop for the VH1 truck was the distribution warehouse of the Emergency Operations Center in neighboring Hancock County, to unload a much-needed shipment of tools and hardware.

“This is great stuff,” said Wes Griffith, genuinely excited as he supervised the offloading of the donated supplies, including chainsaws, pliers, drills, and work gloves.

“It’s not going to be here long,” he said.

Standing beside a wall of constantly-updated maps, Griffith explained the process by which such crucial equipment reaches the people who need it most.

Griffith, a Waveland, Mississippi native was a mortgage broker before Katrina thrust upon him the role of Liaison Officer for an Emergency Operations Center.

“It’s been hard,” he said, “but I’m just so impressed with the help we’re getting.”