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Helping Hurricane victims

On 28 August 2005 Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and nearby cities. It was followed by Hurricane Rita, which hit the Texas coast.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers were mobilised as in other recent disasters. Below are internal Church of Scientology Emails and news items mentioning their activities. This is presently a work in progress and will be tidied up later.

Editing has been confined to changing dates to a standard format, anonymising phone numbers and removing repeating contact details.

A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM:

TOM AND KATHY STEINER, BATON ROUGE MISSION

By now you have undoubtedly heard about the cataclysmic natural disaster that has struck the city of New Orleans and nearby Gulf States. This hurricane is among the largest natural disasters to hit the US in our lifetime. The devastating effects, at this moment in time, are unknown, as while I am writing this, it is not possible to get into some of the areas of New Orleans that have been flooded, to assess the damage and loss of life.

It is safe to assume that the damage is horrendous. Having just experienced Hurricane Katrina, I can tell you everything you have read in the newspapers or on the internet doesn't even come close to the reality of the full impact.

Tom and I along with the Mission Holder Lafayette and all staff are organizing up a huge VM Relief Effort to get some much needed help to the peoples of this area. Much of New Orleans and the highways into the area are completely flooded, with water reaching up to and above the rooftops of houses. Right now, people are being rescued by boat. There are 9,000 people taking refuge in the Superdome, as well as in many other shelters throughout the area. Thousands have no electricity, air conditioning and are running out of useable restrooms, food, fresh water and all of the day to day items we take for granted that make life easier.

We have VMs coming from New York, Nashville, Tampa, Chicago, Charlotte, Los Angeles, Orlando, Atlanta and the list is growing.. The Scientology Disaster Response Team is forming in Louisiana! But this is not enough. We need your help.

What we need from you is the following: $75,000 to mobilize the VMs and start supplying help to the people..500 VMs now?, Way To Happiness Booklets, Assist Booklets, and Solutions to a Dangerous Environment Booklets. We need thousands of these ( ˝ million of each).

I know I can depend on you to help with this effort. This is a very real situation. We need your help and together we will seize the day..

Love,

Tom and Cathy Steiner

The first VM staging area will be in Louisiana at the Baton Rouge Mission. If you can help in any way in this relief effort, please contact Aenetta Apodaca, VM I/C West US at 323-953-XXXX.

Dawn Chaban
CSDR Los Angeles Area Coordinator
(323) 377 - XXXX

Palmbeachpost.com 29 August.
[...]
About a dozen volunteers from the Church of Scientology Disaster Response Team clad in yellow T-shirts helped dispense food and gave shoulder massages to tired workers and talked to anxious storm victims.
"A lot of people are sitting in their homes not knowing that they can help," said Kathy Dillon, a volunteer Scientology minister. Anyone who wants to volunteer can go to one of the numerous relief sites to be put to work, she said.
[...]

MSNBC Gossip column by Jeannette Walls. 30 Aug
Scientology volunteers are already showing up at sites devastated by Hurricane Katrina, handing out food and giving messages. In the past, some critics have accused the controversial religion using disasters to recruit members, though Scientology defenders say they’re just trying to help.

Wed, 31 Aug 2005

From: Alice xxxx @earthlink.net

Subject: You Must Read This - ALL Volunteer Ministers

URGENT
YOU MUST READ THIS

The assessment of damage and loss of life following in the wake of Hurricane Katrina cannot even yet be assessed. New Orleans is being evacuated as we speak. Today some 1200 people who were stranded, were rescued by rescue teams. There are some 250,000 people still to be evacuated from this city, and meanwhile flood-waters continue to rise, threatening life and causing untold damage. Easily, 10,000 people are now without homes, by one estimate made. And this is only ONE area struck by the hurricane.

Today the Volunteer Ministers were officially assigned the hat of helping a government agency in the relocation of hundreds of homeless people to new shelters. We have been given clearance to provide counseling and assistance to people through Scientology techniques. And further, the Sheriffs office of the Vermilon Parish (a county) of Louisiana has stated in an official letter the following:

"The international Scientology Disaster Response Team is operating in the State of Louisiana in response to the devastation created in our fellow parishes in South East Louisiana. More than 300 volunteers are coming to Louisiana with this team to ensure that correct aid is given to those affected by Katrina."

And the letter goes on to say:
"The international Scientology Disaster Response Team has worked at Ground Zero during 9-11, assisting clean-up and aid after the Tsunami, and was a major force in every hurricane to hit Florida in the last three years. They are experts in handling human misery and assisting the rescue workers and other relief teams to get the job done. They should be allowed on any and all lines within Louisiana to further assist in reliev[ing] the devastated survivors and to help us rebuild southeast Louisiana."

500 Volunteer Ministers are needed NOW in Louisiana and Mississippi to help the thousands upon thousands of people who have lost their homes, their property and possibly friends or family.

We have been given a hat and a responsibility to help this disaster area. If you are a VM, you need to act. Get together with your friends and associates and form a team, and contact us now, or your local VM In Charge, and arrange to fly or drive to Baton Rouge Louisiana where the VM Operation is being headed up.

Donations are also URGENTLY needed as we are providing food, water, medical supplies, toiletries and other essentials to literally thousands of homeless people.

This is a time for action and we have the technology and knowledge to help these people to restore their lives.

Please do so.

[snip contact details]

VM Hotline
1-800-435-XXXX
vm@volunteerministers.org
6331 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, California 90028

Thu, 1 Sep 2005 From: "Jenna"

Subject: Fwd: We have a TRUCK for Baton Rouge!!!

Hi, Everyone,

I am forwarding this from Pam Ryan Anderson to make sure everyone gets the word. Contact her regarding donos for this.

Also, all Katrina coordination is being done at the Baton Rouge Mission so anyone planning to go up to help should go to:

9432 Common Street
Baton Rouge, LA 70809
Tel: 225-928-xxxx

ML,

Bruce for Judy VM I/C Tampa Bay, Florida (see comm below)

Hi Guys,

I have to give you an update already. My phone has been ringing off the hook ever since I wrote the "You can help" e-mail this morning. But here is the big news.
Janette and Brett Haugen have volunteered their moving truck and will drive it up!

So now our challenge is to fill their entire moving truck with food, clothes, etc, and get some money donated for gas. This is awesome! LET'S KEEP GOING!!!

Thanks to everyone that is helping!

Love,

Pam Ryan Anderson

Thu, 1 Sep 2005

From: "Barbara Ayash"

Subject: RE: Fwd: We have a TRUCK for Baton Rouge!!!

Dear Pam,

Our organization is donating 10,000 copies of The Way To Happiness book. They are being shipped direct to the Baton Rouge Mission as a gift from Concerned Businessmen's Association of America.

ML,

Barb Ayash

From: Nancy West
Date: Thu 1 Sept 2005

Subject: ALL EUS & MID-WEST VMs-URGENT!!

Dear SuperThetans,

It is VITAL that ALL VMs from the Mid-West and East US who can possibly come for any length of time, from 2 days to several weeks, arrive in Baton Rouge no later than Saturday. I cannot stress how utterly and completely urgent this is! It is a lot easier for people from Chicago, Missouri, Tennessee, and even Boston & NY to get to Baton Rouge than it is for people to arrive from the West Coast. You have simply GOT to make it happen! If necessary, get friends or relatives to help you with plane fare and expenses, but DO IT!

I fully expect VMs from ALL of the following cities to make it go right to arrive in Baton Rouge this weekend:

Tampa, Orlando, and Miami, Florida (There are already some VMS from these areas in Baton Rouge. We need more!)

Albany, Long Island, and New York City, New York (I know there are already 20 VMs on their way from NY Org. How about Albany??? Long Island??)

Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, and Detroit, Michigan
Atlanta, Georgia
Austin, Texas
Boston, Massachussetts
Chicago, Illinois
Cincinnatti and Columbus, Ohio
Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri
Minneapolis and Twin Cities, Minnesota
Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee
New Haven, Connecticut
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Founding Church, Washington, D.C.

Above are a total of 24 cities with enough parishoners in each of them to send VMs to Baton Rouge. Please coordinate ALL of your efforts so that you can arrive in large numbers.

If you're driving, pick up other VMs along the way. If you're flying, try to get reduced fares by letting the airlines know you are Volunteer Ministers flying into Baton Rouge for Hurricane Disaster Relief.

Be in comm with Abby at IHelp EUS - 212-757-XXXX, as she needs to know who is arriving, when and for how long.

THIS IS VITAL. It's time to show our West Coast VMs that we can match them in enthusiasm and participation. We have promised the very needy people in these hurricane-ravaged areas that we will have at least 200-300 VMs in Baton Rouge by Saturday. We must keep that promise.

START!!

Much love & ARC,
Nancy West
Clearwater, FL

Fri, 02 Sep 2005

From: Alice xxxx@earthlink.net

Subject: 250 Scientology Volunteers arrive in Louisiana - Hundreds More Are Needed

TODAY WHEN I VOLUNTEERED AT THE RIVER CENTER IN BATON ROUGE, I WAS IMPRESSED TO SEE YOUR VOLUNTEERS WERE AMONG SOME OF THE FIRST THERE TO HELP THE VICTIMS. THE ENORMITY OF THIS TRAGEDY IN MY STATE IS SO HARD TO COMPREHEND; I THANK EVERYONE WHO KEEPS OUR STATE IN MIND. - A.H.

The above e-mail was just received from a lady in Louisiana. 250 Scientology Volunteers are arriving in Louisiana We need HUNDREDS more - now now NOW
Get the order of of magnitude of this disaster. Unquestionably the largest disaster in America in the last century. Untold damage to the entirey of New Orleans and other cities. Over 1,000,000 (one million) people displaced from their homes to which they may never be able to return.

Our Volunteers are arriving in shelters around Louisiana and providing help to people who have nothing left.

One man, a Computer Programmer, arrived to a shelter 4 days after evacuating New Orleans. He had no shoes, and was in a state of agitation.
The VMs provided him with facilities, got him clothing, and then assisted him to contact his mother in Oklahoma and a ticket home and even helped him get to the airport. The man could not believe that the nightmare was over.

Another man, who could not find his pregnant wife, was given a session by a VM, throughout which he dispelled a lot of grief and this was followed by a locational after which the man thanked the VM over and over again. There are THOUSANDS of people just like the above, who have no help and have lost hope.

This is Memorial Day weekend. We need HUNDREDS of Scientology volunteers in Louisiana this weekend. No one can stand by and do nothing. Make your way to Baton Rouge Mission, and join us in this VM disaster relief effort. Bring others with you.

Contact us now and let us know you are going and who is going with you. We are also accepting donations for food, water, supplies, Scientology books, and other vital necessities.

Thu, 1 Sep 2005

From: "Jenna"

Subject: clothes for Louisianna

Okay you wonderful Thetans who love to help! I just found that clothes can be sent to Louisiana in care of the Baton Rouge mission. I have CSW in to a business owner asking that his place be the dropping off point for the clothes. The alternative of course is we send them as individuals.

My idea is to make it a smooth working machine, clothes, blanket shoes etc. that are clean, gathered up, dropped off and then shipped in intervals of bi-weekly or weekly. Actually it may turn into to daily as the amount increases. I'm giving you a heads up before you get rid of any clothing etc. and think with sending them off to Louisiana.

I'll let you know as soon as I hear back on the CSW. If it's approved you'll get the location along with any other particulars. It's a convenient location so I've got postulates in on it.

love,
Jenna

----- Original Message -----

From: TASteiner@aol.com To: xxxxxxxxx@earthlink.net
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005

Subject: Re: Question!

In a message dated 9/1/2005 2:17:31 A.M. Central Standard Time, xxxxxxxxxx@earthlink.net writes:

Hello! You are awesome!

I read your email and sent it out to my list asking it to be forwarded.

Since some of us aren't able to make it there to help we'd like to send clothes. Would it be okay to gather up clothes and send them? I know money is the most needed but in addition to that I would imagine clothes, blankets, shoes etc. are really needed. love,

J

Jenna,

Yes, clothes will be most welcome. Send to Church of Scientolgy Mission of Baton Rouge

Thank yo very much, the need is greater than anyone really realizes, and is growing daily.

ml,

Tom

From: L.D. Sledge

Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005

Subject: VMs in Baton Rouge

Can you imagine superimposing the population of a city the size of New Orleans onto a city the size of Baton Rouge? That is what has happened. I am sure all of you are keeping up with the news, as it is constantly being covered as a national topic. I am not sure how New Orleans will recover, but it will only be with Federal aid. And while it is a total nightmare down there, the media is making sure it is worse. But pictures do not lie.

Our Rivercenter, a new exhibition hall constructed alongide our big Centroplex used for hockey and big events, is packed with refugees. Last night, a dozen VM's, Amelia and I included, set up a yellow tent in the Rivercenter and wearing our yellow shirts started doing our stuff. The Red Cross was there first, supplying food, cots and blankets, etc., to those who arrived first. Then they had none until late in the evening.

Those first arrivals staked out their "homesteads," little square feet of blankets laid on the floor along the walls, then came the next group which had to find places out in the wide open spaces, and when we arrived, there was barely enough room to walk between these little "bedrooms." Two or three had camping tents. Others were lying on the bare hard floor, with no blankets or anything to lie on. There were entire families of every age. These were people who could not find or afford hotels. The hotels were packed to capacity in a two hundred mile radius.

We made our presence know immediately by fanning out and circulating, talking to them, doing assists, doing narrative allowing them to tell what happened, getting blankets and pillows to those who needed them. There were hallways filled with donated clothing and I was able to find some blankets and pillows, but got the last of them that were donated, relying on the Red Cross to fill the gap later by providing blankets.

Many of them just laid on the bare floor with only a blanket and no pillow. The majority had a blanket to lie on and one to sleep under and perhaps something on which to lie their heads, and little more. These people had nothing left of their lives except the clothes on their back, having escaped flooded homes and now will return, perhaps in weeks, or even months, to find all their possessions destroyed. How they will make it as the reality seeps in and they begin to worry is of my concern. Some are in shock, but only a few for they were like campers on their first day at camp, still adjusting to the move, but as day after day of boredom wears on they will begin to need help. We need to get there teaching them to do BOOK One, and how to do assists.

We should also provide books. I found one girl who wanted to read Dianetics and I will give her one today. It would be a perfect time to give The Way To Happiness books as they will have time to read them.

They do have the consolation that FEMA, the Federal agency that pays for some of their losses, will pay for their loss of food and furniture, etc. So all is not lost.
I was surprised at their attitude. They were mostly relatively uptone---so far.

Amelia did some assists on a half dozen and with terrific results. One lady said she felt light and wonderful, after being morose and down.

Everyone I talked to and helped by spending a bit of time with was smiling and uptone when I left, and as I passed back by later was greeted by wide smiles and waves. Soon they were calling to us for this or that, asking for help as if we were the ones to call on, and we were the only ones.

We hit there as grief counsellers before anyone else got there!!! And I hear we were on FOX National TV!! I haven't seen it.

We have several young staff members VM's, and they got the little ones and began playing games with them, doing a congo line through the big room, jumping and playing, and I remember seeing one young girl calling out, "where's Alexis?", asking for Brittany and Alexis to come back and play with them. This gave those little kids a wonderful break.

Most have no idea of their families and loved ones left behind have survived. While they are apparantly keeping their tones up, I am sure they will begin to fret and then go into despair without help. We are the only ones to give real help. We must hold the line and go in there day after day and become fixtures to these people.

This was the second day of their confinement in this big room. They all knew it was just the beginning. There is no way of telling when they can go home. They have reconciled themselves to this regimen and I am concerned how they are going to take it after a week or so living like this, with so few comforts. We will be needing all the money and help we can get to hold the line and keep control of this segment. There are dozens of other locations packed with refugees other than the River Center. Lamar Dixon, a huge building used for rodeos, has 6,000 humans.

I understand a huge influx of VMs is headed to Baton Rouge, arriving in the next few days. Amelia and I have a 5,500 square foot home we have had on the market for sale now for 18 months. It is in the finest part of town, and totally vacated and empty. We are making it available for these visiting VM's to stay there. I hope the power comes back on soon so they will have AC.

We need all the VM's possible to fill the gap and be there for these people and keep the psychs at bay and become the real terminals for them that we are and can be. We need all the donations we can get also.

Send your donations to the Baton Rouge Mission 225 928-7805. And for you living in this area, bring your donated items to the mission. Any clothes, towels, toothbrushes, sox---anything and everything. Empty your closets of old things you will never use. A beautiful little seven year old girl walked up to Amelia last night and said "can I have some clothes, all I have is this", she said, pulling on her dress. Amelia is sure her mother sent her to say that, but nonetheless, she has nothing but the dress she was wearing.

Children's clothes, shoes, whatever you have, bring it to the mission as a collection point and we will bring it to the collection point. As this refines the operation, perhaps you can bring it to another location and I will keep you informed.

We will be going back during the day and every evening to help. This is our job. Call the Baton Rouge Mission, or me, to find out what you can do.

Drs. Rohit Adi and John Ragusa were there, giving assistance. I found one man who was desperate for his diabetes medication, and Rohit helped him. I went from family to family, person to person, asking if we can help in any way, and most of them needed blankets and pillows, basics like tooth brushes and towels, and I am sure soap and other essentials. I have no idea how they will bathe for there are no showers there. So help is needed, and we are help. Do what you can.

L.D. Sledge

http://www.scientology.org/en_US/news-media/briefing/2005/vm/katrina/050902.html

HURRICANE KATRINA SCIENTOLOGY VOLUNTEER MINISTERS DISASTER RESPONSE

September 2nd, 2005

Scientology Volunteer Ministers from Tampa, Orlando and Houston have arrived in Louisiana to provide much needed relief to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

[see link for rest of article and photos, other pages are being added]

Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2005

From: Valerie xxxxx@comcast.net>

Subject: 1st hand VM update

More from LD in Baton Rouge via Valerie in Boulder

Friends:

Get this picture. Baton Rouge is a city swelled to twice the size it was a week ago. Traffic is hell. The streets are swarming with thousands of people who a week ago were in their homes in New Orleans. The constituency of our city has altered and probably will never be the same again, not to the same degree as N.O. has changed, but changed. There may be months before these people are able to return to their homes.

When I have sat with the refugees I tell them about the old Chinese Proverb: "When there is disaster or catastrophe, two things will happen: Change, and Opportunity." As they hear this I always see a glimmer of hope in their eyes. This puts the responsibility right where it belongs.

VM's are rolling in. We have five staying in my home with us and my home that is for sale is open for any who wish to stay and sleep on the floor with their own stuff. The house is beautiful and in the best neighborhood in Baton Rouge (huge live oaks hanging over wide streets with no traffic) So far there is no power in that house, so they will have to sleep with windows open until the power is brought back on line.

They have been told they are going to the swamp and need boots and mosquito repellant. Perhaps later, but not now, as their work is taking place in the shelters in and around BR. It may be a long time before our VM's, along with the refugees, are allowed into New Orleans.

VM's work is right here in air conditioned buildings, where there are no mosquitos or need for boots. Many refugees have been distributed through areas such as Lafayette, Texas and I am told as far away as Iowa. You are talking entire populations being dispersed throughout in areas willing to help. Texas' heart is as big as it's wide open spaces. When N.O. is reopened, there will be need there, and I have no idea what the conditions will be then.

What they need is money for food, or food in place to feed them, blankets, pillows, blow up mattresses, cots, toilet tissue, towels, etc., to sleep on the floor.

The VM's are now at a command post at the Mission. The mission is striving to keep its stats up while supporting this and all this randomity. A larger building is sought. But there is control and organization. Money is needed for the VM's and to rent a larger space. Send money via the Baton Rouge Mission.

What I see is a need to support the VM's.

Yesterday a group of twelve were at the River Center and went all day without food, and by the end of the day were beat to hell and back and were dragging.
They need what you can give to them. Some came without the wherewithal to stay or maintain themselves. It should be your responsibility to help feed and shelter these people who are sacrificing their time, energy and resources for all the rest of us.

We in Baton Rouge are doing the best we can by opening our homes and arms to them, going out ourselves to the shelters and VMing as much as we can while maintaining our own lives and living, but you guys out there snug in your homes should do more than observe all this randomity and effort. If you know any of these VM's sent them money. Money is needed for the Refugees, but you see how much the Red Cross has generated in one day for the Red Cross. Give some money for our own.

L.D. Sledge

Post subject: VM stats from New Orleans
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2005

From: Alice Pero

Subject: Breaking news, Katrina, VM wins and stats

This is the very latest and most detailed briefing of what is happening now and in the last couple of days, forwarded by the VM I/C WUS from the VM I/C Int. Read it. Tell your friends. Arrange to go to help!
****
We have about 200 VMs on the ground and more are comeng. We need another 800 from the WUS to leave in the next 48 hours. The data is to contact as many friends as possible and get figure out how they can get there. Then call me and let me know if they need any help leaving, etc. Once they have everything booked and they are leaving call my office and let me know the names and times they are leaving and how long they can stay so that I can keep track of the data. This is really what is needed. I am handling alot of things. Here is the good news in the last couple of days.

****
I AM SENDING YOU THE LAST 2 DAYS DRS FROM THE VM HOT LINE HERE AT FLO, GIVING AN OVERVIEW OF WHAT IS HAPPENING. IT IS BY FAR NOT ALL THAT IS GOING ON BUT IT CERTAINLY GIVES A PICTURE. WE NEED AT LEAST(UL) 1000 VM'S ON THE GROUND IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS, AND WE NEED TO GET MORE FROM THERE.

YOU CAN USE THIS DATA TO GET SCIENTOLOGISTS TO GET THEIR VM HAT ON AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

ML VOLUNTEER MINISTER I/C INT

HURRICANE KATRINA - VM RELIEF DISASTER RESPONSE - UPDATE 1 SEPT 2005

10,000 Way to Happiness booklets were donated by a wog company through a contact. That same company then donated another 2000 Way to Happiness booklets. All of these are being shipped and arriving over the next days in Baton Rouge.

Funds were collected for and purchased an additional 2000 Way to Happiness booklets which BPI is shipping out to Baton Rouge tomorrow.

The goal is to get TONS of these booklets there for distribution to these people, in Baton Rouge and New Orleans so that we can enter sanity in the scene, and especially in New Orleans, so that we can help quell the growing violence.

We have worked out a plan to send an assessment team to New Orleans tomorrow to assess damage and to see what the state of the New Orleans Mission building is in and if it can be transformed into a staging area and HQ for New Orleans operations. Local authorities will be coordinated with tomorrow on this through local contacts.

From there we will start working with local rescue workers in New Orleans and help them, as well as other people, and we can get The Way to Happiness booklets out into the community and stem the violence.

# of Volunteers now on the ground (Baton Rouge, LaFayette) = 87 (includes Volunteers arrived, local Msn staffs and local publics)

# of Volunteers en route to Baton Rouge (that we know of so far) = 25

# of Volunteers confirmed to leave, most of whom are leaving between Friday and Sun = 117

# of Volunteers who are going but still handling logs to leave = 31

Total between those arrived, those en route, those who have their logs handled and are confirmed to leave and those who are handling logs to leave = 260

500 VMs there is the minimum drop-dead target today.

Then 1000, but it can't stop there -- we need more than that.

NOTE: There are many public who called in today that are making plans to go, WISE is activating WISE members through mailings, and there are other Mission staffs being called in through Cathy and Tom Steiner Missions as well as other Missions. We KNOW there are many more who are going who just haven't told us they left or are leaving so the above figure is probably an understatement.

OSA INT is sending in Pat Harney from OSA Flag, Beth Akiyama from OSA EUS, Sue Taylor and Sharyn Runyan is going. OSA Int is sending two PRs out tomorrow to Baton Rouge.

One owner of a construction company in CW/Tampa, shut down his company and is leaving with 10 of his construction staff for Baton Rouge this morning. He is a veteran of the 9-11 disaster relief.

Again, calls POURED into the VM Hotline here all day long with people wanting to go, or asking how they can help, and others donating sums of money for the relief efforts. Similarly calls poured in non stop to the VM I/C and IHELP WUS and EUS offices, literally.

1000 more VM t-shirts were financed today through donations we collected and these will be ready over the weekend and will be shipped to Baton Rouge.

200 t-shirts that we had printed are arriving later today (Friday).

We had a conference call tonight with 30 public in Houston, headed up by a local OT, and they are preparing to assist the evacuees who are being relocated to the Astrodome.

OSA Int is sending the DSA DVR to Houston to assist in the PR necessary to get this accomplished.

BATON ROUGE:

Tom and Kathy Steiner, Mission Holders for Baton Rouge continue to head up the disaster relief operation. SMI Off Int helped them with suggestions on how to expand their org board tonight to include more functions, including training VMs from the masses of public that are everywhere, out of production, low havingness and put them to work to become cause instead of effect.

The Steiners are arranging accomodations for all the VMs coming in. They are bringing in a trailer to provide offices for the operation. To date they have collected locally through donations $50,000. This does not count the the donations we have collected here (8-$9000) and monies collected through VM I/C WUS and IHELP WUS and EUS offices.

In their DR, they report the following (paraphrased):

* The VMs in one shelter last night found evacuees lying on floors with no blankets, so they searched out and found blankets and gave them to the people. The next day (today) Tom Steiner went to meet with the I/C of this particular shelter and found him to be out-ruds (no sleep) and got him in comm, found what was needed and wanted (more cots and blankets) and the I/C originated that after the VMs left the shelter last night, "all hell broke loose after ya'll left last night." - realizing that the VMs were a stabilizing force and he wanted the VMs back in on the main floor.

* A local Scientologist (Cathilea Robinett) who has a comm line to the secretary to the Mayor of New Orleans is attempting to contact him to find out what is needed to get people into New Orleans. She will also do other safepointing actions so our VMs can start study tech handlings in shelters as there are many kids out of school.

* A meeting is being held Friday morning with local community religious leaders.

* VM activities have now expanded to 3 locations. The River Center - Baton Rouge, the shelter in Vermillion (near LaFayette) and a new one established today in Lamar Dixon - this last one being about 20 minutes from the Mission and is a large establishment. Lamar Dixon has a few thousand people at it and the I/C of that shelter wanted us to send 25 VMs, 5 of which went tonight which is all he wanted for tonight.

LAFAYETTE:

* Marie Pace (Mission Holder LaFayette Msn) arrived at the Homeland Security office to start on the relocation of hundreds of people assigned to her VM team. She met with the I/C and he was quite nervous due to rioting, violence etc in New Orleans. The place had cops and Sheriffs to guard it.

Marie and her VM team got to work setting up the shelter, which required getting beds set up, getting bedding and items needed for the people.

Marie mobilized the community who responded and brought in supplies, food etc and had 200 beds set up on target. She had her PES contact WAL-MART who donated 142 pillows. Marie was escorted by 2 police as she went to meet with a local restaurant owner who thanked her profusely for all of the "Scientology help" and he pledged to help get these refugees jobs.

The Mayor stopped by to see how things were going and thanked them again.

Tomorrow morning the buses arrive with the first 200 people to handle. She needs VM t-shirts (200 are arriving tomorrow and another 1000 are on press on Friday and ship out to them over the weekend).

* According to Marie's obs, the media is making the scene out to be worse on the violence, restimulating people and causing worry. Marie complained to two Sheriff's who were wearing bullet-proof vests that they got to wear it and they responded that "don't worry - your T-shirt (VM) will handle it!"

* But she raises a good point that we must get these people back into work as otherwise the consequence could be even worse (low morale, etc).

* Business owners are calling in thanking her for the work of the VMs and that what we are doing is tremendous.

* Once finished with this current shelter, this VM team will move onto the next shelter, the Cajundome, which has 8000 people.

WINS & ANECDOTES:

At the first shelter in LaFayette area one man (Computer Programmer) who had made it out of New Orleans, but not bathed 4 days, and who was rattled and scared, was taken in, provided the means to shower, as the VMs had set up showers, washers, dryers, beds, clothes etc for both shelters).

He was given locationals, VMs got him shoes (he had no shoes when he arrived), got him clean clothes, and then got him a phone so he could speak with his mother in Oklahoma and then was assisted to get a plane ticket to his mothers house. And then even arranged for his ride to the airport. The man was in disbelief that his nightmare was over and kept checking back over and over if it was true that someone would have helped him with all this -- he kept double checking that he indeed had a flight booked out of this nightmare and was taken to the airport and out of his personal trauma, on his way to safety at his mothers home.

A VM gave a Book One session to a man whose pregnant wife was missing. He ran the incident of being evacuated from work and a lot of grief charge came off. Afterward he was given a locational and thanked the VM profusely over and over and was able to confront present time and handle it.

Two VMs gave a couple assists. The wife was in extreme pain as she was hurting from staying up on her roof during the flood. They were shaky and in grief and after the nerve assists and locationals they were VGIs and uptone.

In another shelter a lady approached a VM and asked for a t-shirt, which she had been requesting for 4 days. The VM got her one and the woman hugged her and cried - just show what a little bit of care did.

A man got an assist and then brought his daughter to get one. She was very introverted and gave her hurricane story. She brightened up and was given an assist, after which she was relived and much more uptone. Her dad was so happy as the girl had refused to come out of the community room as she was depressed and now he saw her happy for the first time in days.

A VM who had worked on the disaster relief last year during the hurricanes was approached by two Red Cross staff who recognized her.

They hugged her and thanked her for being there and one of them got an assist for half an hour as she was so worn down and getting ill.

The ED Baton Rouge, Kelley Keeney, spoke with Senator Bobby Jindal who was there early in the morning. He had just finished filming with a camera crew and she told him that Louisiana was very lucky to have him.

He took her hand and said "thank you for helping these people and doing the work she was doing."

A VM got in comm with an elderly woman who had not really slept in days due to the noise. The VM gave her assists and then helped the woman go to bed and she slept. Another person told the VM that the old woman had been up pacing the halls at night not sleeping.

A VM saw a screaming baby that no one was paying attention to and the child had tears all over it's face and was hysterical. There was on adult there and several other babies around. The VM immediately picked the baby up and gave her a locational and the child almost immediately stopped crying. This brought the tone up in the adults nearby as they were so enturbulated with the crying and not being able to do anything effective.

HURRICANE KATRINA VM DISASTER RELIEF - UPDATE FOR 2 SEPT 2005

200 VM T-shirts which were printed in LA by FLO, arrived in Baton Rouge and were VERY well received. Also 200 yellow baseball caps were to arrive.

200 more VM T-shirts which we collected for and had printed, are arriving Saturday morning and another 800 are being printed and will arrive around sunday in Baton Rouge, giving them a total of about 1100 t-shirts.

2000 donated Way to Happiness booklets are arriving on Saturday morning. Another 10,000 donated Way to Happiness booklets are being shipped and arrive around wed.

Kathy & Tom Steiner, Mission Holders of Baton Rouge and I/Cs for the disaster relief efforts head quarter set up in Baton Rouge, wanted Way to Happiness booklets to pass out to the Black publics in Louisiana, so The Way to Happiness Fdn and designed this, with celebrity Isaac Hayes personal front cover and 10,000 were financed through donations. The first 1200 were just delivered to the FLO at about 12;30am tonight and will be shipped out tomorrow, Saturday. These will be distributed in New Orleans as a key element in handling the scene there.

Today we also ordered $10,000 in VM booklets which was done through donations provided. These booklets including Assist booklet and others, will ship out in a truck this week.

WISE has briefed and activated many businesses and donations are coming in from public all through the day. A tractor trailor has been arranged to arrive in PAC on Tues, which will be filled with donations (food, clothing etc). The word is getting out and people will be dropping donations off at LA org to fill this truck.
We are also shipping the VM booklets mentioned above, in this truck.

A Scientologist in Clearwater has a huge truck and got posted on the outside of it a VM logo saying "SCIENTOLOGY DISASTER RELIEF TEAM" and has the 1-800 Unit # on it. We assume he is bringing in donated supplies, to be confirmed.

A Scientology businessman in Chicago sent out an email to his wog employees stating that volunteer ministers are needed in Louisiana. He stated that they did not have to be Scientologists and that they would be trained to do what Scientology Volunteer Ministers do. Ten of his employees are leaving with him to go and volunteer.

The EUS VM Cavalcade in Chicago is being redirected to Louisiana and while breaking down in Chicago they set up a place for donations to come to them and wogs are dropping off items regularly.

The Canadian VM Calvacade tent is being driven down to Louisiana with a team of Canadian Volunteers.

BATON ROUGE:

Current figures, incomplete in that we do not know everyone that has left as so many people have contacted us telling us they are going, but these figures are what we have been able to get together show that there are 183 known Volunteers from EUS (40 arrived, 17 enroute and 136 more confirmed to come or leaving), and 168 Volunteers from WUS (25 arrived, 48 en route and 95 confirmed to come or leaving).

Added with the Mission staffs and public that are already there, plus some 30 or so WISE public coming and other publics who called and are going by themselves or as teams, it appears that we are up to or over 400 volunteers now coming. We are tracking the grids and gathering names as they come into us but the above is what we know so far.

In Baton Rouge there are over 100 volunteers on the ground with all people combined.

The target is to have 1000 volunteers there who will be deployed between Baton Rouge, LaFayette, New Orleans and Mississippi. Once we have 1000, we must get more -- it is a massive operation and more are urgently needed.

They have reworked their org board to expand functions to include service lines for all the VMs (cooking, cleaning, comm handling etc).

Some offices of the Baton Rouge mission were transformed into VM spaces.

OSA Int and Internet Unit FLO put up the website pages and installed PayPal for donations to go straight to the mission and this is working very well with regular donations flowing in that way.

Meanwhile, other donations poured in today. Easily we collected in the area of $10,000 today from callers, and the mission has upwards of $75,000 in donations now.

A VM was interviewed by FOX NEWS today at the River Center shelter.

Positive.

The VMs are doing a tremendous amount of assists and 2wc and sessions on people at the shelters and tomorrow they are lining up to set up in 3 more shelters and start delivering.

The team visited the EOC (Emergency Operations Center) for the East Baton Rouge parish (county) and were asked to mock up an org board for them, mock up hats, data entry activities etc. 4 VMs were assigned and started immediately on the job.

NEW ORLEANS:

Today we sent in a team, with Kathy Steiner, one of the SO members from the WUS Cavalcade, and several other VMs plus a prestigious doctor from the Baton Rouge area (and Scientologist) to find out what is the exact scene on the ground in New Orleans.

They made their way into New Orleans and got to the clinic of one of the Scientologists. They went into the clinic and found two doctors there, both Scientologists, guarding the clinic. Both ensuring that the clinic was not the target of looting. The team coordinated with them to get a team of VMs in to work out of the clinic which has a capacity of 25 beds and which had been stocked up with food and water and a generator for electricity. They were well prepared. One of the doctors contacted the owner of the building and got his agreement for the VMs to operate out of the clinic.

The team proceeded further into the inner city toward the Superdome and hit an impasse at one of the levees where the road disappeared into a literal lake where houses, 2 and 3 stories high were flooded up to their roof tops. The place was a stench of smell and death. Military helicopters were all over the place, transporting people from the Superdome at a rate of some 2000 people evacuated to dry land per hour.

Military personnel and police were everywhere. The team was not able to get to the New Orleans Mission building due to this so we don't know yet what state that building is in.

We coordinated with Tom and Kathy Steiner, to send in a team of some 25 VMs into New Orleans tomorrow, starting in smaller increments involving several loads, and these VMs will specifically start working with the police and rescue personnel, to help them. The Scientology Dr (Dr Rohit) will be with them to assure their passage through the checkpoints on the way. From there, with themselves more established, we will get them out into other parts of the city to assist people who are still very definitely all over the place.

Some incredible footage of this was gotten, and is being sent up by the SO member to GOLD.

The team experienced first hand just how massive and devastating the destruction is of New Orleans. There is a curfew on the city.

People are not admitted in or out after 6pm so we will arrange for the VMs that go there to safe-point the police-military personnel so that they can assist further after 6pm since they will be staying in the clinic. This team will likely be headed up an SO Member from the WUS VM Cavalcade and 4 or 5 other BIG guys as the initial lead team. Female VMs will be admitted later once we know our ground better.

Stats today in Baton Rouge between various shelters are:

456 assists given,
113 people helped,
2 new VMs trained.

LAFAYETTE:

Marie Pace, ED Mission LaFayette, heads up this operation. She met with the Mayor of the town and did some initial planning as regards to relief efforts.

At the first shelter that this VM team was overseeing since yesterday, they have since placed 13 people in homes and jobs!

Marie coordinated with local business owners on help to place people in jobs, and three of these companies came back to her today and provided data on jobs available so as to place people - which now provides her with capacity to provide 60 jobs to displaced people.

The VM team was also provided with HOMELAND SECURITY BADGES to wear by the same man above who heads that local office.

At the 2nd shelter, the team received 78 people, and started working to help these people.

Marie set it up with the Homeland Security director at the location for her VM team to relocate to a large shelter facility at the Cajundome tomorrow.

FEEDBACK:

At the Lamar Dixon shelter, headed by the Baton Rouge group, Senator Mary Landan approached the VMs and said "Volunteer Ministers are here, Thank God!" She then shook each of their hands and thanked them for their help. The Senators Aide asked a VM how they got there so fast. The VM told her that an email was sent out asking for help and Scientologists responded from all over just like they did for 9-11 and the Tsunami.

A VM asked a lady what she could help her with. She said she hadn't been able to contact her family. The VM gave her a cell phone and the lady reached her family and said that her family were on their way to get her and she was extremely relieved and hugged the VM.

A VM found a woman who was in shock, crying and started to almost go unconscious. She gave her a locational for 25 minutes and by the end she stopped crying and was able to move around.

A guy from up north called the Baton Rouge Mission to say that he ad seen the VMs on TV and he wanted to come down and work with us. He is flying down and will do the VM Assist course and then start as a VM.

A Red Cross volunteer came up to a VM and told him that the VMs had saved her life in the last hurricane because they were so helpful with their assists and help to the rescue workers.

A lady called in this morning to the VM Hotline who had been directed to us by Barb Wiseman. She is part of the LA Fashion industry and wants to donate clothing for the evacuees. When I told her where to ship them to, she asked me if they were ready to receive a LOT of clothes and I said yes - bring it on!

ML VOLUNTEER MINISTER I/C INT

Faith-based groups flock to disaster

God's punishment theory spreads

Duncan Campbell in Baton Rouge
Tuesday September 6, 2005
The Guardian, UK

[...]

There are 300-400 Scientology ministers who have arrived and plan to stay for weeks, too. Larry Byrnes, who was wearing the distinctive Church of Scientology minister T-shirt, said they had mounted similar operations in New York after September 11, in Sri Lanka after the tsunami and also in Israel and Africa. "We were the first on the scene at Punto Gordo [where the hurricane struck in Florida] last year." Did he encounter any resistance from people of other religions or none?

"There's no religious aspect towards helping someone," he said. "There's no intolerance of other people's views. People rise to the occasion. In that sense, it's a religious experience because religion means bringing people together."

AFP - 6 Sep 2005

US actor John Travolta and actress wife Kelly Preston thank their Scientology friends that volunteered giving shots and comfort at the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Deptartment Command Center in Metairie, Louisiana, near New Orleans. Travolta, an experienced pilot, flew the supplies in his own private jet to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, then toured the flooded city of New Orleans and visited rescue workers and shelters for evacuees. The two movie stars also brought along 400 doses of tetanus vaccines for rescuers (AFP/Paul J. Richards)

[Also in the picture is Dr. Rohit Adi, mentioned in other reports]


Syndicated:

Travolta's gift

September 06, 2005

[Photo] Compassion ... John Travola and Kelly Preston embrace Jefferson Parish Sherrif Harry Lee.

METAIRIE, Louisiana: John Travolta and his wife, Kelly Preston, delivered five tonnes of food for victims of Hurricane Katrina today.

Travolta, an experienced pilot, flew the supplies in his own private jet to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, then toured the flooded city of New Orleans and visited rescue workers and shelters for evacuees. The two movie stars also brought along 400 doses of tetanus vaccines for rescuers.

The star of Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction said he was co-ordinating with Oprah Winfrey to get even more relief for more than one million people affected by one of the worst storms in US history.

"That's our job today," he said. "We're hoping this time we're effective."

At the Jefferson Parish sheriff's command centre, the two stars posed for pictures and thanked Scientology volunteers administering tetanus shots to rescue workers. Both are Scientologists.

At one point, Travolta spoke quietly with Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee, then embraced him. Preston followed suit, with tears in her eyes.

"They've had such great loss," she said.

Subject: VM stats from New Orleans
Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2005

From: Alice Pero

Subject: Breaking news, Katrina, VM wins and stats

This is the very latest and most detailed briefing of what is happening now and in the last couple of days, forwarded by the VM I/C WUS from the VM I/C Int. Read it. Tell your friends. Arrange to go to help!
****
We have about 200 VMs on the ground and more are comeng. We need another 800 from the WUS to leave in the next 48 hours. The data is to contact as many friends as possible and get figure out how they can get there. Then call me and let me know if they need any help leaving, etc. Once they have everything booked and they are leaving call my office and let me know the names and times they are leaving and how long they can stay so that I can keep track of the data. This is really what is needed. I am handling alot of things. Here is the good news in the last couple of days.

I AM SENDING YOU THE LAST 2 DAYS DRS FROM THE VM HOT LINE HERE AT FLO, GIVING AN OVERVIEW OF WHAT IS HAPPENING. IT IS BY FAR NOT ALL THAT IS GOING ON BUT IT CERTAINLY GIVES A PICTURE. WE NEED AT LEAST(UL) 1000 VM'S ON THE GROUND IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS, AND WE NEED TO GET MORE FROM THERE.

YOU CAN USE THIS DATA TO GET SCIENTOLOGISTS TO GET THEIR VM HAT ON AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

ML VOLUNTEER MINISTER I/C INT

Updates in nexts 2 posts

HURRICANE KATRINA - VM RELIEF DISASTER RESPONSE -

UPDATE 1 SEPT 2005

10,000 Way to Happiness booklets were donated by a wog company through a contact. That same company then donated another 2000 Way to Happiness booklets. All of these are being shipped and arriving over the next days in Baton Rouge.

Funds were collected for and purchased an additional 2000 Way to Happiness booklets which BPI is shipping out to Baton Rouge tomorrow.

The goal is to get TONS of these booklets there for distribution to these people, in Baton Rouge and New Orleans so that we can enter sanity in the scene, and especially in New Orleans, so that we can help quell the growing violence.

We have worked out a plan to send an assessment team to New Orleans tomorrow to assess damage and to see what the state of the New Orleans Mission building is in and if it can be transformed into a staging area and HQ for New Orleans operations. Local authorities will be coordinated with tomorrow on this through local contacts.

From there we will start working with local rescue workers in New Orleans and help them, as well as other people, and we can get The Way to Happiness booklets out into the community and stem the violence.

# of Volunteers now on the ground (Baton Rouge, LaFayette) = 87 (includes Volunteers arrived, local Msn staffs and local publics)

# of Volunteers en route to Baton Rouge (that we know of so far) = 25

# of Volunteers confirmed to leave, most of whom are leaving between Friday and Sun = 117

# of Volunteers who are going but still handling logs to leave = 31

Total between those arrived, those en route, those who have their logs handled and are confirmed to leave and those who are handling logs to leave = 260

500 VMs there is the minimum drop-dead target today.

Then 1000, but it can't stop there -- we need more than that.

NOTE: There are many public who called in today that are making plans to go, WISE is activating WISE members through mailings, and there are other Mission staffs being called in through Cathy and Tom Steiner Missions as well as other Missions. We KNOW there are many more who are going who just haven't told us they left or are leaving so the above figure is probably an understatement.

OSA INT is sending in Pat Harney from OSA Flag, Beth Akiyama from OSA EUS, Sue Taylor and Sharyn Runyan is going. OSA Int is sending two PRs out tomorrow to Baton Rouge.

One owner of a construction company in CW/Tampa, shut down his company and is leaving with 10 of his construction staff for Baton Rouge this morning. He is a veteran of the 9-11 disaster relief.

Again, calls POURED into the VM Hotline here all day long with people wanting to go, or asking how they can help, and others donating sums of money for the relief efforts. Similarly calls poured in non stop to the VM I/C and IHELP WUS and EUS offices, literally.

1000 more VM t-shirts were financed today through donations we collected and these will be ready over the weekend and will be shipped to Baton Rouge.

200 t-shirts that we had printed are arriving later today (Friday).

We had a conference call tonight with 30 public in Houston, headed up by a local OT, and they are preparing to assist the evacuees who are being relocated to the Astrodome.

OSA Int is sending the DSA DVR to Houston to assist in the PR necessary to get this accomplished.

BATON ROUGE:

Tom and Kathy Steiner, Mission Holders for Baton Rouge continue to head up the disaster relief operation. SMI Off Int helped them with suggestions on how to expand their org board tonight to include more functions, including training VMs from the masses of public that are everywhere, out of production, low havingness and put them to work to become cause instead of effect.

The Steiners are arranging accomodations for all the VMs coming in. They are bringing in a trailer to provide offices for the operation. To date they have collected locally through donations $50,000. This does not count the the donations we have collected here (8-$9000) and monies collected through VM I/C WUS and IHELP WUS and EUS offices.

In their DR, they report the following (paraphrased):

* The VMs in one shelter last night found evacuees lying on floors with no blankets, so they searched out and found blankets and gave them to the people. The next day (today) Tom Steiner went to meet with the I/C of this particular shelter and found him to be out-ruds (no sleep) and got him in comm, found what was needed and wanted (more cots and blankets) and the I/C originated that after the VMs left the shelter last night, "all hell broke loose after ya'll left last night." - realizing that the VMs were a stabilizing force and he wanted the VMs back in on the main floor.

* A local Scientologist (Cathilea Robinett) who has a comm line to the secretary to the Mayor of New Orleans is attempting to contact him to find out what is needed to get people into New Orleans. She will also do other safepointing actions so our VMs can start study tech handlings in shelters as there are many kids out of school.

* A meeting is being held Friday morning with local community religious leaders.

* VM activities have now expanded to 3 locations. The River Center - Baton Rouge, the shelter in Vermillion (near LaFayette) and a new one established today in Lamar Dixon - this last one being about 20 minutes from the Mission and is a large establishment. Lamar Dixon has a few thousand people at it and the I/C of that shelter wanted us to send 25 VMs, 5 of which went tonight which is all he wanted for tonight.

LAFAYETTE:

* Marie Pace (Mission Holder LaFayette Msn) arrived at the Homeland Security office to start on the relocation of hundreds of people assigned to her VM team. She met with the I/C and he was quite nervous due to rioting, violence etc in New Orleans. The place had cops and Sheriffs to guard it.

Marie and her VM team got to work setting up the shelter, which required getting beds set up, getting bedding and items needed for the people.

Marie mobilized the community who responded and brought in supplies, food etc and had 200 beds set up on target. She had her PES contact WAL-MART who donated 142 pillows. Marie was escorted by 2 police as she went to meet with a local restaurant owner who thanked her profusely for all of the "Scientology help" and he pledged to help get these refugees jobs.

The Mayor stopped by to see how things were going and thanked them again.

Tomorrow morning the buses arrive with the first 200 people to handle. She needs VM t-shirts (200 are arriving tomorrow and another 1000 are on press on Friday and ship out to them over the weekend).

* According to Marie's obs, the media is making the scene out to be worse on the violence, restimulating people and causing worry. Marie complained to two Sheriff's who were wearing bullet-proof vests that they got to wear it and they responded that "don't worry - your T-shirt (VM) will handle it!"

* But she raises a good point that we must get these people back into work as otherwise the consequence could be even worse (low morale, etc).

* Business owners are calling in thanking her for the work of the VMs and that what we are doing is tremendous.

* Once finished with this current shelter, this VM team will move onto the next shelter, the Cajundome, which has 8000 people.

WINS & ANECDOTES:

At the first shelter in LaFayette area one man (Computer Programmer) who had made it out of New Orleans, but not bathed 4 days, and who was rattled and scared, was taken in, provided the means to shower, as the VMs had set up showers, washers, dryers, beds, clothes etc for both shelters).

He was given locationals, VMs got him shoes (he had no shoes when he arrived), got him clean clothes, and then got him a phone so he could speak with his mother in Oklahoma and then was assisted to get a plane ticket to his mothers house. And then even arranged for his ride to the airport. The man was in disbelief that his nightmare was over and kept checking back over and over if it was true that someone would have helped him with all this -- he kept double checking that he indeed had a flight booked out of this nightmare and was taken to the airport and out of his personal trauma, on his way to safety at his mothers home.

A VM gave a Book One session to a man whose pregnant wife was missing. He ran the incident of being evacuated from work and a lot of grief charge came off. Afterward he was given a locational and thanked the VM profusely over and over and was able to confront present time and handle it.

Two VMs gave a couple assists. The wife was in extreme pain as she was hurting from staying up on her roof during the flood. They were shaky and in grief and after the nerve assists and locationals they were VGIs and uptone.

In another shelter a lady approached a VM and asked for a t-shirt, which she had been requesting for 4 days. The VM got her one and the woman hugged her and cried - just show what a little bit of care did.

A man got an assist and then brought his daughter to get one. She was very introverted and gave her hurricane story. She brightened up and was given an assist, after which she was relived and much more uptone. Her dad was so happy as the girl had refused to come out of the community room as she was depressed and now he saw her happy for the first time in days.

A VM who had worked on the disaster relief last year during the hurricanes was approached by two Red Cross staff who recognized her.

They hugged her and thanked her for being there and one of them got an assist for half an hour as she was so worn down and getting ill.

The ED Baton Rouge, Kelley Keeney, spoke with Senator Bobby Jindal who was there early in the morning. He had just finished filming with a camera crew and she told him that Louisiana was very lucky to have him.

He took her hand and said "thank you for helping these people and doing the work she was doing."

A VM got in comm with an elderly woman who had not really slept in days due to the noise. The VM gave her assists and then helped the woman go to bed and she slept. Another person told the VM that the old woman had been up pacing the halls at night not sleeping.

A VM saw a screaming baby that no one was paying attention to and the child had tears all over it's face and was hysterical. There was on adult there and several other babies around. The VM immediately picked the baby up and gave her a locational and the child almost immediately stopped crying. This brought the tone up in the adults nearby as they were so enturbulated with the crying and not being able to do anything effective.

HURRICANE KATRINA VM DISASTER RELIEF -

UPDATE FOR 2 SEPT 2005

200 VM T-shirts which were printed in LA by FLO, arrived in Baton Rouge and were VERY well received. Also 200 yellow baseball caps were to arrive.

200 more VM T-shirts which we collected for and had printed, are arriving Saturday morning and another 800 are being printed and will arrive around sunday in Baton Rouge, giving them a total of about 1100 t-shirts.

2000 donated Way to Happiness booklets are arriving on Saturday morning. Another 10,000 donated Way to Happiness booklets are being shipped and arrive around wed.

Kathy & Tom Steiner, Mission Holders of Baton Rouge and I/Cs for the disaster relief efforts head quarter set up in Baton Rouge, wanted Way to Happiness booklets to pass out to the Black publics in Louisiana, so The Way to Happiness Fdn and designed this, with celebrity Isaac Hayes personal front cover and 10,000 were financed through donations. The first 1200 were just delivered to the FLO at about 12;30am tonight and will be shipped out tomorrow, Saturday. These will be distributed in New Orleans as a key element in handling the scene there.

Today we also ordered $10,000 in VM booklets which was done through donations provided. These booklets including Assist booklet and others, will ship out in a truck this week.

WISE has briefed and activated many businesses and donations are coming in from public all through the day. A tractor trailor has been arranged to arrive in PAC on Tues, which will be filled with donations (food, clothing etc). The word is getting out and people will be dropping donations off at LA org to fill this truck.
We are also shipping the VM booklets mentioned above, in this truck.

A Scientologist in Clearwater has a huge truck and got posted on the outside of it a VM logo saying "SCIENTOLOGY DISASTER RELIEF TEAM" and has the 1-800 Unit # on it. We assume he is bringing in donated supplies, to be confirmed.

A Scientology businessman in Chicago sent out an email to his wog employees stating that volunteer ministers are needed in Louisiana. He stated that they did not have to be Scientologists and that they would be trained to do what Scientology Volunteer Ministers do. Ten of his employees are leaving with him to go and volunteer.

The EUS VM Cavalcade in Chicago is being redirected to Louisiana and while breaking down in Chicago they set up a place for donations to come to them and wogs are dropping off items regularly.

The Canadian VM Calvacade tent is being driven down to Louisiana with a team of Canadian Volunteers.

BATON ROUGE:

Current figures, incomplete in that we do not know everyone that has left as so many people have contacted us telling us they are going, but these figures are what we have been able to get together show that there are 183 known Volunteers from EUS (40 arrived, 17 enroute and 136 more confirmed to come or leaving), and 168 Volunteers from WUS (25 arrived, 48 en route and 95 confirmed to come or leaving).

Added with the Mission staffs and public that are already there, plus some 30 or so WISE public coming and other publics who called and are going by themselves or as teams, it appears that we are up to or over 400 volunteers now coming. We are tracking the grids and gathering names as they come into us but the above is what we know so far.

In Baton Rouge there are over 100 volunteers on the ground with all people combined.

The target is to have 1000 volunteers there who will be deployed between Baton Rouge, LaFayette, New Orleans and Mississippi. Once we have 1000, we must get more -- it is a massive operation and more are urgently needed.

They have reworked their org board to expand functions to include service lines for all the VMs (cooking, cleaning, comm handling etc).

Some offices of the Baton Rouge mission were transformed into VM spaces.

OSA Int and Internet Unit FLO put up the website pages and installed PayPal for donations to go straight to the mission and this is working very well with regular donations flowing in that way.

Meanwhile, other donations poured in today. Easily we collected in the area of $10,000 today from callers, and the mission has upwards of $75,000 in donations now.

A VM was interviewed by FOX NEWS today at the River Center shelter.

Positive.

The VMs are doing a tremendous amount of assists and 2wc and sessions on people at the shelters and tomorrow they are lining up to set up in 3 more shelters and start delivering.

The team visited the EOC (Emergency Operations Center) for the East Baton Rouge parish (county) and were asked to mock up an org board for them, mock up hats, data entry activities etc. 4 VMs were assigned and started immediately on the job.

NEW ORLEANS:

Today we sent in a team, with Kathy Steiner, one of the SO members from the WUS Cavalcade, and several other VMs plus a prestigious doctor from the Baton Rouge area (and Scientologist) to find out what is the exact scene on the ground in New Orleans.

They made their way into New Orleans and got to the clinic of one of the Scientologists. They went into the clinic and found two doctors there, both Scientologists, guarding the clinic. Both ensuring that the clinic was not the target of looting. The team coordinated with them to get a team of VMs in to work out of the clinic which has a capacity of 25 beds and which had been stocked up with food and water and a generator for electricity. They were well prepared. One of the doctors contacted the owner of the building and got his agreement for the VMs to operate out of the clinic.

The team proceeded further into the inner city toward the Superdome and hit an impasse at one of the levees where the road disappeared into a literal lake where houses, 2 and 3 stories high were flooded up to their roof tops. The place was a stench of smell and death. Military helicopters were all over the place, transporting people from the Superdome at a rate of some 2000 people evacuated to dry land per hour.

Military personnel and police were everywhere. The team was not able to get to the New Orleans Mission building due to this so we don't know yet what state that building is in.

We coordinated with Tom and Kathy Steiner, to send in a team of some 25 VMs into New Orleans tomorrow, starting in smaller increments involving several loads, and these VMs will specifically start working with the police and rescue personnel, to help them. The Scientology Dr (Dr Rohit) will be with them to assure their passage through the checkpoints on the way. From there, with themselves more established, we will get them out into other parts of the city to assist people who are still very definitely all over the place.

Some incredible footage of this was gotten, and is being sent up by the SO member to GOLD.

The team experienced first hand just how massive and devastating the destruction is of New Orleans. There is a curfew on the city.

People are not admitted in or out after 6pm so we will arrange for the VMs that go there to safe-point the police-military personnel so that they can assist further after 6pm since they will be staying in the clinic. This team will likely be headed up an SO Member from the WUS VM Cavalcade and 4 or 5 other BIG guys as the initial lead team. Female VMs will be admitted later once we know our ground better.

Stats today in Baton Rouge between various shelters are:

456 assists given,
113 people helped,
2 new VMs trained.

LAFAYETTE:

Marie Pace, ED Mission LaFayette, heads up this operation. She met with the Mayor of the town and did some initial planning as regards to relief efforts.

At the first shelter that this VM team was overseeing since yesterday, they have since placed 13 people in homes and jobs!

Marie coordinated with local business owners on help to place people in jobs, and three of these companies came back to her today and provided data on jobs available so as to place people - which now provides her with capacity to provide 60 jobs to displaced people.

The VM team was also provided with HOMELAND SECURITY BADGES to wear by the same man above who heads that local office.

At the 2nd shelter, the team received 78 people, and started working to help these people.

Marie set it up with the Homeland Security director at the location for her VM team to relocate to a large shelter facility at the Cajundome tomorrow.

FEEDBACK:

At the Lamar Dixon shelter, headed by the Baton Rouge group, Senator Mary Landan approached the VMs and said "Volunteer Ministers are here, Thank God!" She then shook each of their hands and thanked them for their help. The Senators Aide asked a VM how they got there so fast. The VM told her that an email was sent out asking for help and Scientologists responded from all over just like they did for 9-11 and the Tsunami.

A VM asked a lady what she could help her with. She said she hadn't been able to contact her family. The VM gave her a cell phone and the lady reached her family and said that her family were on their way to get her and she was extremely relieved and hugged the VM.

A VM found a woman who was in shock, crying and started to almost go unconscious. She gave her a locational for 25 minutes and by the end she stopped crying and was able to move around.

A guy from up north called the Baton Rouge Mission to say that he ad seen the VMs on TV and he wanted to come down and work with us. He is flying down and will do the VM Assist course and then start as a VM.

A Red Cross volunteer came up to a VM and told him that the VMs had saved her life in the last hurricane because they were so helpful with their assists and help to the rescue workers.

A lady called in this morning to the VM Hotline who had been directed to us by Barb Wiseman. She is part of the LA Fashion industry and wants to donate clothing for the evacuees. When I told her where to ship them to, she asked me if they were ready to receive a LOT of clothes and I said yes - bring it on!

ML VOLUNTEER MINISTER I/C INT

Wednesday, 7 September 2005

New Orleans residents to go, political storm grows

by Mark Egan, Reuters

[....]
Among aid workers in New Orleans on Tuesday was a group from the Church of Scientology. Wearing yellow T-shirts, a couple of dozen worked out of a yellow tent set up downtown beneath a banner reading "something can be done."

The Scientologists offered massages to police and rescue workers but said they were not there to proselytize.

From: Alice Pero
Date: 6 Sept 2005

Subject: PRIORITY:Getting the VM's to the Gulf Coast to salvage beings

Dear Scientologists,

Right now our stats are UP on getting MEST provisions to the VM's and evacuees in BR and other areas. As you know a huge truck is loading and going out from LA Org as I speak. This doesn't include the hundreds of donations from Tampa and other places, as well as donations sent by individuals by UPS and the mail. More trucks will be going out soon.

And the Red Cross and other agencies do this sort of thing. What they can't do is salvage beings.

What is needed now is to get the VM's there on the scene.. We have an incredible opportunity to salvage a huge number of beings right now. This is a disaster, yes, but also a chance to give hope to thousands of people.

How often does such an event occur?

These people are there, waiting for us to deliver assists, Study Tech, TWTH and a major HOPE factor. The situation is wide open and there are no stops on delivery.
Getting VM's there is the only slow. WE NEED PLANE TICKETS.

Please make a monetary donation to buy plane tickets. There are VM's queued up and waiting here in LA for funds for a plane ticket. The tickets are greatly discounted for VM's....only $400 instead of around $600. If 4 people donate $100 each, that is one VM going. Those with more wherewithal can donate batches of tickets or one whole ticket.

Veteran Scn, Ricki Hall at TH Travel is on board and is arranging these discounted flights.

PLEASE CONTACT: VM I/C WUS (or anyone in her office): 323-953-3340.

Ask for the VM area.
Credit cards can be taken over the phone.
OR Send a Donation by Check (write "plane fares" on the check) to:

VM I/C WUS
1308 L. Ron Hubbard Way
LA, CA 90027

THANK YOU!!

Love,

Alice Pero
VM Comm LA

From: Greg L Saunders

Sent: 5 September 2005

To: TheRazzLine
Subject: the Houston VM actives

Hi Every one,

I Just wanted to give a little debrief on the VM activities of the Day, For those of you that don't know My business partner Bob Hay and I closed down our business and drove from LA to Houston with our wives Robin Hay and Connie Saunders to help with the disaster relief, It was a long drive but well worth it.

We arrived at the Houston Mission and were briefed by the DSA from Denver who is here coordinating the VM activities. We then packed up and rolled off to the Houston Astro Dome and began giving assists and helping the refugees, It was a daunting sight to see the entire Astro dome filled with cots and people.

The Red Cross and FEMA ( Federal Emergency Management Agency ) Org boards were not to well in place so we just assumed the beingness of Volunteer minsters and went out on the floor giving assists and helping those that needed help, finding lost family members, helping to arrange a jobs to those that needed them directing people to where they could get clothing etc.

Every one loved us and we had people in lines to get assists, the refugees were very thankful as well as the Red Cross and FEMA personal.

The only thing we needed were more VMs to give more assists. There were 10's of thousands of people there all very willing to have help and a good comm cycle. And by the way all the media crap about unrest in the area is completely blown out of proportion we saw no indications of any thing like that.

Your help is really needed and is So appreciated. by every one, even the local public while we were in local restaurants were thanking us and telling us about what they were doing to help out.

Helping bring order to this scene is really fun and rewarding come and pitch in you'll feel great for having done so I have pictures of assist being done but unfortunately left my Nikon patch cord in LA. so you will have to wait for the pictures.

Greg and Connie Saunders,
Bob and Robin Hay,

Date: 4 Sept 2005

From: "Carole Eddington"

Subject: The Scientology Disaster Response Team is growing - 1000 are needed NOW!

Please Forward This

1000 SCIENTOLOGY VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED IN LOUISIANA NOW
OVER 500 VOLUNTEERS ARE NOW EITHER ON SITE IN LOUISIANA, LEAVING OR ABOUT TO LEAVE TO BATON ROUGE TO JOIN THE SCIENTOLOGY DISASTER RESPONSE TEAM

THE ORDER OF MAGNITUDE OF THIS DISASTER IS MEASURED IN THE MILLIONS IN TERMS OF PEOPLE WHOSE LIVES HAVE BEEN UPTURNED AND THE THOUSANDS WHO WERE KILLED

THIS IS A SALVAGE JOB THAT WILL EMBRACE WEEKS AND WEEKS OF WORK AND THOUSANDS OF SCIENTOLOGY VOLUNTEERS

NEARLY 200 SCIENTOLOGY VOLUNTEERS ARE ON SITE NOWBETWEEN BATON ROUGE, LAFAYETTE AND NEW ORLEANS.

OUR TEAMS IN NEW ORLEANS ARE NOW WORKING DIRECTLY WITH THE RESCUE TEAMS AND POLICE.

THEY ARE PROVIDING IMMEDIATE ASSISTS TO THE RESCUE WORKERS AND POLICE, AND YOU CANNOT BELIEVE HOW MUCH THESE WORKERS APPECIATE THE HELP. FIRE MEN WHO ARE WORKING ROUND THE CLOCK AND DEALING WITHTHIS DISASTER HAVE ASKED FOR OUR HELP. THE DISASTER RELIEF WORKERS, THE POLICE, THE FIREMEN, ALL ARE TRUE HEROS AND THEY NEED OUR HELP. NOT TO MENTION THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO HOMES, AND NEED HELP TO RESTORE THEIR LIVES.

WE ARE STARTING UP PROGRAMS TO HELP CHILDREN, EVERYTHING FROM ENTERTAINING THE KIDS TO PROVIDING THEM WITH BOOKS TO READ. THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN ARE IN THESE SHELTERS WITH NO SCHOOLING OR ASSISTANCE AVAILABLE TO THEM.

In LaFayette, an 89 year old man was approached by our team. He told them about his ordeal of being trapped on a roof and in his own words: "I thought it was all over I thought I was dead, he said. He had tears streaming down his face. The VM Team Leader took him into a room and gave him a locational.

Throughout the assist he would not let go of her hand but after a while he brightened up and squeezed her hand and said, I havent lost everything. I'm alive."

In one shelter, there was a young black mother with five children who arrived from New Orleans. They had lost everything. It couldnt have been more despondent. No clothes, nothing. TheVMs gave her a cell phone so that she could call her family in another state. She was helped to get a bus and a VM drove her for 2 hours to make the connection. She was in such a state of disbelief when it finally sank in that she was getting out.. everyone had tears in their eyes. And, her sister is arranging to buy her a new home.

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED. NO MATTER WHETHER YOU ARE TRAINED OR NOT, YOU CAN HELP THESE PEOPLE.

CONTACT US, OR YOUR LOCAL ORG OR MISSION, LET US KNOW WHEN YOU ARE LEAVING AND WHO IS GOING WITH YOU.

PROCEED TO BATON ROUGE MISSION. ACCOMODATIONS AND FOOD ARE BEING HANDLED FOR YOU. BRING LIGHT CLOTHES AS IT IS HOT AND HUMID. BRING POCKET MONEY AND YOUR SLEEPING BAG. YOU WILL BE PROVIDED WITH VM T-SHIRTS AND AN ID CARD WHEN YOU ARRIVE AND YOU WILL START AT ONCE.

DONATIONS ARE ALSO BEING ACCEPTED. LOS ANGELES IS SENDING TRUCK LOADS OF DONATED MATERIALS AS WELL AS THE CLEARWATER ORGS AND PUBLIC, AND ELSEWHERE TOO.

FOR FINANCIAL DONATIONS, CALL 1-800-435-xxxx, OR GO ON-LINE TO WWW.VOLUNTEERMINISTERS.ORG AND USE THE ON-LINE DONATIONS OPTION.

1000 PEOPLE NEED TO BE IN BATON ROUGE NOW NOW NOW LETS GO PEOPLE

Date: 07 Sept 2005

From: Alice Pero

Subject: From the front lines: VM heroes in New Orleans

FIRSTHAND REPORT FROM NEW ORLEANS VM TEAM

This is a fantastic report from Martha Conway who got into New Orleans right away.

Tuesday, September 5th

The First Two Days of VM Bases Established in New Orleans:

Stories of Heartache, the Incredible Good in Man, John Travolta and More

Hi Guys:

It's TUESDAY and I wanted to let you know that Pete, Tara and I just returned from New Orleans around 8:30 this morning. Here's a brief recounting of what's going on where we were - the first VM crew inside New Orleans. Working with the cops, SWAT teams and rescue workers provided a unique perspective -- one that's not covered in the news. It's 5 pages long, and that's leaving out a lot.

FRIDAY - SATURDAY

The levee broke in New Orleans late Monday night. We left Friday afternoon and arrived early Saturday morning, got a few hours of sleep and went directly to the Volunteer Minister base that was being established at Baton Rouge Mission.

Since we were amongst the first to get there, the lines and organization were just being established. The ED of the New Orleans Mission (Stephanie), now without her own facilities, had set up the VM headquarters and the traffic coming onto the Mission lines from the VM effort was ... well ... tantamount to running your company while a military installation is establishing quarters using the same space and comm lines.

All VM calls were flooding onto the Receptionist. Stephanie was in a different part of the 3000 s/f building with no phone lines to her headquarters. The Receptionist was running through the building to find her for every call. Within 20 minutes of arriving and seeing the scene, I started taking Stephanie's calls so the Receptionist could focus on the Mission traffic and Stephanie could focus on organizing the effort, under the direction of the three SO Calvalcade Missionaires who were safepointing bases for VMs to go to and overseeing the overall coordination (more about this inspirational team later. They exemplify what I studied on the PDC). It was organized pandemonium. In 6 hours I non-stop handled maybe 200 phone calls ..
getting the data each caller wanted by racing through the Mission to the correct source if I didn't have the info, racing back to the phone, and taking the next call. The lines blinked constantly ... 2 and 3 calls holding at a time ... questions about logistics, transport, money, supplies, directions, comm lines offered up to valuable resources, and people calling in who emailed data to all of their comm lines trying to get correct data to send out ... new information was being updated by the hour, as VMs came back from shelters in Baton Rouge.

Pete, being a doctor who could administer shots, was immediately despatched with Tara ("nurse" assistant) to the first VM base within New Orleans set up to assist the rescue workers .. police, SWAT, etc.

This base had just been established by the SO Calvacade team. Tara was told no females could go that far into the city due to the danger. For those of you who know my daughter, this was not a stop and so she was the first female VM to get onto the front lines in New Orleans. This was a makeshift encampment in east Jefferson Parish, which is a few miles from the deeply flooded area in the heart of New Orleans. It's the adjacent parish ... Like Pinellas is to Hillsborough in Florida. If Ground Zero was downtown Dunedin, then this East encampment area was located just before you get on the Causeway to go to Tampa.

Pete administered a few hundred tetanus shots to the rescue workers who ..get this .. had nobody administering any preventive measures. Dr. Rondi Adi, MD on staff at the Baton Rouge Mission who works an emergency room at a local hospital, purchased hundreds of these shots so we could get to these guys right away. We had to secure more tetanus and we did . more on that later .. due to the incredible intention of these SO Calvalcade Crews and Dr. Adi.

Word got out amongst the cops faster than a radio signal that we had tetanus and guys were driving in to the base hoping to get a shot before we ran out. Many were turned away and told to come back the next day while we figured out how to get more. (Where was the Red Cross? More later on my plea to the one and only Red Cross vehicle that showed up briefly at the encampment, drove around for a few minutes and left).

SUNDAY

I wanted to get out of headquarters and into the field so I went with Pete the next day with a handful of incredible VMs back to this East encampment, while the SO Calvacade guys went on with Tara and a few other VMs on an assessment mission set up more bases inside New Orleans to back up the rescue workers.

Many of the officers coming in were fresh back from wading in the filthy water, rescuing the living and letting the dead float by or, if they were on the body-tagging crew, tagging them and flipping them onto shore for pickup (A volunteer officer told me the next day they'd gotten 12 men to volunteer for the job of picking up these bodies). These guys came to the base to eat and get their shots, if any were left. They'd then get electrolytes and then get an assist. Some came directly to get their shot and afterward we brought then food so they could get their body ruds in before the assist.

Their gratefulness was overwhelming to me ... for here are the true heroes of the situation right now and in their eyes, we were heroes because we were there caring for them. These men were risking their lives every time they left the encampment -- they were getting sniped at in the attempt to rescue and exposing themselves to completely unknown contaminants. These were the ones remaining after the estimated 40% of the force resigned (I'm unsure which parish this figure was for .. Jefferson or the Ground Zero parish ..either way, it meant fewer officers from the area to help). Most had barely slept in 4-5 days. Many had no homes left, displaced families and relatives and friends still missing or confirmed dead.

One officer told me his fellow officer and friend had committed suicide because he went home and found his wife and daughter dead. Later in the day I heard there were several other such suicides by police officers.

I will say that the prevailing sentiment amongst these police, fire and SWAT workers was disgust at the misinformation and misportrayal of events by the tv news media. For every story I'd watched, these guys had "the rest of the story." Data that completed the picture and reaffirms that the only angle news media is interested in is one that will create chaos -- especially tv. That's not to say that there's no chaos. But it's embellished.

Case in point is the report that police are looting. Police in that area are running out of supplies and are being ordered to get them from nearby stores, such as the gas station they commandeered. The police gas station had had no delivery and they had to fill the tanks of their cars.

Another case in point: one news story related that the cops let the criminals out of the jail. I asked a New Orlean policeman if this was true. He calmly explained that it was only half the story. They weren't let loose on the streets. The criminals are under their jurisdiction. When the mayor gave the order to evacuate, they had to make arrangements to transport the criminals. When they started to do this, private citizens expressed rage that the cops were helping the criminals. So they were damned if they evacuated the crims because the citizenry was not being helped; they would be damned if they left the crims behind and they died. They changed their course mid-evacuation. What they finally did in the end he did not fully articulate, but they did not just open the doors of the trucks and let the crims loose, which was the impression given by one account I heard.

I did a lot of two way comm with the ones who were just sitting for a few minutes to get off their feet and chill. I'd sit next to them and launch into a conversation, usually with a question like, "have you had any sleep?" Then the itsa would start. These guys were shell-shocked. They'd describe their viewpoints about the effort, their personal situations and some of what they'd seen that day. We'd sit in silence for a minute. I'd wait until they started talking again. And they would. I was just a terminal listening. We'd find some irony in a story and laugh, relieving a tense moment of grief or suppressed grief.

These guys were still in the heat of battle and just that respite meant so much to them. They'd part with hugs, warm handshakes, and an outpouring of gratitude. Their appreciation overwhelmed me, for while what we as VMs are doing is commendable, these guys are the true heroes of the moment. None of them saw that when I pointed it out. They just saw themselves as doing what they had to do.

One officer, Billy, who'd been out wading through water all day trying to find people to rescue but instead finding mostly bodies, told me the heroes were the volunteer police and rescue workers who came from other parts of the country to assist their fellow officers to do some of the most disgusting, difficult, heart-wrenching work. To him, they were the unspoken heroes. They didn't wait for the government. They jumped on planes and cars and got to work helping the New Orleans police confront the devastation.

Billy relayed a story from Friday night: There's a FEMA curfew at dark. No citizenry can be on the streets, as the orders are shoot to kill. Rescue efforts are shut down at that time. They were trying to access a nursing home beyond one of the levees that they knew contained 15 elderly. National Guard and other agencies stopped efforts for the night. Billy and some of his buddies, who have boats and do guard work for the oil refineries off the coast, volunteered to go in after dark. They made it to the nursing home and found 92 residents -- all of whom were still alive, but had they waited until morning would possibly not have been.

This is the kind of work these guys were doing. They weren't waiting fro FEMA, National Guard or someone else to get in there. While an estimated 40% of the police force resigned in the in the first few days, these were the ones who stayed. I don't know which county force the 40% resigned from, but the net result was less men from New Orleans to help.

These are men who grew up in and around the area of this devastation. Many have no homes themselves, sleeping out in open fields for 2-3 hours with no showers or changes of clothes and getting back into vehicles and boats to continue. Some of the stories are so graphic I wouldn't write them all. But, to give you an idea of what these guys were seeing, one officer reported having seen an alligator cruising down a highway that had now turned into a canal with water 20' deep with 2 dead babies in its mouth.

I sat for some time with the Deputy Chief of Narcotis who, after getting an assist, some electrolytes and food, took a break for the first time in days and started talking to me. He was a 60ish gangly, leather-skinned tough-guy type. He itsaed about things related and disrelated. Up and down the track. About his wife. His time on the police force. His time in private industry and how purpose won out over money and he went back to police work. He gave his thoughts on the overwhelming task facing this community for months and years to come. The tens of thousands of dead bodies out there no one was even talking about yet. I just and listened and acknowledged. He'd pause. Smile. And start itsaing about something else. We laughed and stopped for a moment .. just looking at each other ... and he nodded his head and nothing needed to be said. We'd shared a moment neither of us would forget. We were in total comm, being to being. When he left we knew we probably wouldn't meet up again and he hugged me and told me to tell Pete "he's got one of the finest women I've ever come to meet."

I relay that not to self-ingratiate; but to make the point that just being there and listening created that effect on this tough, I've seen-it-all veteran of the force. I was a safe person for him and he left with lifted spirits.

One officer stopped me at the end of the day and could not stop thanking me, as rep for all VMs, for being there. He'd gotten an assist and told me that without that he would not have been able to face getting up and going back out again. Tara was the one who'd given him the assist and when she heard that she realized she couldn't go home and decided to stay.

STILL SUNDAY -- EXPANDING OUR PRESENCE IN NEW ORLEANS

By the end of Saturday the assessment team had secured a police base on the west side of Jefferson Parish -- "west bank," a few miles from "Ground Zero" in New Orleans. The Calvalcade crew and Timothy, a VM who had police training and knew the lingo and the lines, managed to get introduced to Col Harry Lee - the topmost honcho of the Jeff Parish PD for the last 25 years -- he's the one you see on tv .. either him or his PR man who Pete and I talked to for 20 minutes and got all the background on Chief Lee.

Chief Lee kicks ass and takes *&it from nobody. He does what he sees fit.

Our guys met with him and he gave them a police escort right into Ground Zero - and carte blanche to any resources needed to get the Calvalcade Tent set up. This was to be the first non-gov't worker relief effort allowed that far into the devastated area. The win was tremendous, but the high was brief, since there were so many logistics to work out. I won't go into details, but the logistics were high -- example: we're out of tetanus and need to procure a LOT more within a matter of hours. We need to get the VM crew from Baton Rouge into the city before morning.

Residents were being allowed back in at 6:00am for a few days and officers R-factored us that the trip back in could be as much as 8 hours if we waited until dawn. It was 8:30 PM Sunday night. We were in New Orleans. We had to drive back to Baton Rouge, where we were being housed, get more reinforcements, get the Calvalcade Tent, get sleeping and eating quarters established in New Orleans for the next few days, and figure out how to get more tetanus -- all within a few hours.

The opportunity to watch these logistics get worked out was something I would not exchange for any material object in the universe. These SO Calvalcade guys, Becket, Cleve and Jesse, along with Dr. Adi, the Baton Rouge staff member who acted as ambassador for the effort with his MD credentials, contacts and irresistably playful personality, exemplify the character of Jettero Heller that LRH writes about in Mission Earth. Jet, to me, is LRHs in-the-flesh version of how an OT operates day-to-day in impossible circumstances. These guys exemplify that op basis.

The logistics that had to be worked out were seemingly overwhelming. Their approach to it wasn't "what do we have to work out if we want to achieve this target?" It was "we need to achieve this target: let's work out the logistics." Tone 40. These guys are operating on little sleep, non-stop action, a million logistics changing by the hour, and they are sooooo light! I mean, it was a game. I'm telling you, there wasn't an ounce of stress showing. It did not get serious. The flow was "if you can stay and help, great! If you can't that's fine too. Do what you need to do.

This is what we're doing. Wanna play?? "

Pete, Tara and I had been planning to go home the next day, but they needed us to stay. Pete was one of the few doctors who could administer shots, we were now stable terminals, plus we now had 3 police outposts to man up in New Orleans instead of just 1. The SO guys really wanted Pete to be there for at least one more day wearing the doctor hat since, for those of you who know him, his joviality was so contagious he'd get even the somberest officer to crack up.

The cook, who ran the encampment, a former Nicaraguan contra relocated to New Orleans, took an immediate liking to Pete and from that point on, anything and everything we needed was at our disposal.

The other officers treated him like one of them and he brought the whole place uptone.

MONDAY

We went to sleep around midnight Sunday night and awoke about an hour later for our 1:45 AM rendezvous at the Mission to get the New Orleans convoy on the road. There were roadblocks set up and diversions for civilian traffic. We showed our VM badges and yellow shirts and were waved in on an express route, along with the National Guard, military, police, and other rescue workers. So we got in earlier than anticipated. That was good.

Now we needed a place to stay. We convoyed to the hospital in New Orleans area where Dr. Adi and a neurologist, Dr. Rob, also a Scientologist, worked. It was being guarded by guys with MK16s to keep the druggies from breaking in. We drove our vehicles to the 3rd floor of the garage where we set up our sleeping bags around 4:00 AM on the concrete floor and caught some more sleep. It was about 85 degrees, but we had a big fan blowing on us to keep the air moving.

A few hours later we woke and organized into 4 groups. Medical teams, auditors and helpers were assigned to teams who would despatch to Ground Zero, and east and west police lockups. The fourth team had discovered an outpost the day before near Ground Zero where tons of supplies had been delivered, but no manpower to get them out. The fire department had asked them to handle it and within a few hours on the first day they'd given out food and water to over 1000 evacuees; waiting in line with babies, sick people, well ... you get the idea.

Pete and I got reassigned to the west encampment police outpost and toward the end of the day ran out of shots. Tara had gone into Ground Zero to help set up the Calvalcade Tent and got lots of inside pictures of the devastation. It was more of the same and the stories would fill a book. But we ended the day with this playful story:

We were at the west side base and had to get over to the east base to get Tara and head back to St Louis. She'd gotten a ride there from Ground Zero, where she'd been for half the day. Mind you, there was no cell phone service for us the entire time we were there so communication was text messages, if you could get through, and theta universe. We turned over the west side base and needed to find out how to get to the east side, about 20 miles away to get Tara. I was in comm with the SO Calvalcade crew and was told that JT was arriving at east side in about 20 minutes. We wanted to get there before that so we could witness it.

Pete asked a burly African-American police officer named "Russell" if he'd escort us over to east side. He immediately said of course. (The police had grown accustomed to escorting us if we needed it and Chief Lee had even assigned the Ground Zero team their own police escort for the day).

Pete said, "well, if that's the case, I have a surprise for you."

Russell said, "man ... I don't need no surprise, I'll take ya anyway."

Pete said, 'well I'll give you the surprise anyway. John Travolta's going to be there in about 20 minutes."

Russell's eyes bulged from his head and he said, "Man, we gotta get goin'!"

That morning driving over from east to west camps it took about 30 minutes -- and that was with still pretty deserted streets. Now we had to get back. Russell said, "you keep up wi' me now." He put on his lights and tore outof the parking lot. I was at the wheel in our rented van screaming around corners, with Pete issuing directives about watching out for this car or that corner. Civilian car traffic was light and quickly got out of our lanes. There were no working intersection lights so we tore through them. At one point, some National Guard vehicles lumbering down the road pulled over to get out of our way. We got there in 12 minutes, pouring out of our cars, howling with laughter.

JT and Kelly show up about 10 minutes later. A camera is thrust into my hand which I later find out is Becket's (the SO Calvalcade leader) who tells me I'm to take as many pictures as I can of the scene. I'm running around the encampment, getting any opening I can with a clear shot and snapping as fast as I can. It's about 90 degrees. I'm sweating profusely.

As JT is introduced to the doctors, I get a shot of Pete and him. In the midst of all of this, I see my friend Greg LaClaire from the VPs Office at CC Int, we've been trying to hook up for the last 3 months. I whiz by him and in the action don't immediately recognize that it's him until I hear "I know we have a hard time hooking up but this is ridiculous." I twig that it's Greg and when JT, Kelly and the escorts wrap up the visit 15 minutes later, Greg and I say "hi and let's figure out how to meet" and he runs off.

The officers at the base were ecstatic. The place was buzzing with action, laughter and theta.

But this is why JT was there: he flew in 2000 more tetanus shots and 5 tons of food in his private plane. I know that because a reporter from an International press unit (I think UPI) ran up to me and asked me why JT was there. He had 4 minutes to get the photo sent up and I ran to get Becket, who told him what JT had brought with him.

Back to our police escort, Russell. He looked like he was full-blown exterior with full perception! Exhilaration was too downtown to describe his state. He gave Pete all his phone numbers and made him promise to stay in comm.

We said our goodbyes, packed up and left. I don't know if I'd had more than 15 hours sleep in the previous 4 days or when I'd eaten. It didn't matter. It had absolutely no bearing on my production. I had no awareness of any body tiredness or out-ruds. I hadn't taken any vitamins, except some EmergenC. I had even come down with a nasty cold on the drive down and, as I lay down that first night I told myself I couldnt' be sick. Saturday, the day I manned the phones, the body felt like shit but it was not an impediment to production. Sunday morning I had a 5 minute body comm and within about 10 minutes most of the somatics were gone.

Nothing ... nothing .... nothing.. compares to this experience. The case gain is beyond anything. Any considerations I had on doing certain tasks disappeared as I confronted what needed to be done. I realized that I had no significances left on doing any task. Laundry, trash pickup, clean off the tables, move mest, sweat like a pig and go around with no makeup and humidity-saturated hair, baggy clothes and just outflow to help the group and whoever I meet. No self-importance. No identity to cling to except Volunteer Minister. And it was the most liberating experience.

I had just read a promo piece on a new Ship Convention about Seamanship and the EP it described is what I got from this experience. It took my ability to be a group member to a new level. I recommend it to anyone. If you can go, there's nothing like it. Your presence there alone is destimulating. And as a Solo Nots auditor, just have a 2WC with someone and watch them go uptone. There's nothing in your space to bounce up against so you just duplicate the being and charge blows.

I have photos. If you want some, let me know. Oh .. and the Red Cross? Let's put it this way. If VMs weren't there, so much help would be lacking it's unconscionable to consider how much more enturbulated the scene would be.

Martha Conway
PR Consultant

From: SolariNews@xxx.com

Sent: 7 September 2005

Subject: VMs Needed IN NEW ORLEANS! - How To Help & Updates

Dear Friends,

My daughter Dana Houston is I/C for Command Central for all VM's who have units in the New Orleans area, including highly trained auditors. The VM's duties are to administer physical and spiritual relief to emergency relief personnel - police, military and volunteers alike.

Her areas are very well organized and the Success Stories are truly phenomenal.

Cell phones are working, berthing is air-conditioned and VM's are not operating directly in harms way.

This is the heart of the beast, and they NEED MORE VMs NOW.

Here's exactly what to do:

1. Get to Baton Rouge - by plane or road.
If you can't go, contact Ricki Hall or her staff at TH Travel 818-500-xxxx and donate frequent flyer miles or $$ for plane tickets - specify it's for any VM going to serve IN NEW ORLEANS (includes East and West Jefferson parishes and New O proper.)

2. If flying in, call for pickup V M Hotline 1-800-435-xxxx

3. Go to the Baton Rouge Mission. Tell them "I'm here to report to Dana Houston (my daughter) in New Orleans."

4. Contact Dana Houston - Cell is 619 - 459-xxxx for further instruction and updates. She can also arrange transport for you from Baton Rouge to New Orleans.

5. You MUST WEAR VM shirt.

IMPORTANT: After 6 p.m. TOMORROW - Thursday - New Orleans is ordered to be totally evacuated. ONLY emergency personnel will be allowed in to Jefferson County. Your VM shirt will get you in.

* DRIVE A VEHICLE IF POSSIBLE - See if you can rent one BEFORE you get to Baton Rouge. Dana got a mini-van in Dallas on Saturday and it has been invaluable.

* CONDITIONS - There's plenty of food & water. No VMs are working in standing water there. Vital hygiene and disinfectant supplies are available. The VM's are also administering tetanus shots.

* PACK - Along with your own vits and hygiene supplies, pack clean SOX, disposable surgical gloves (extras are needed - take boxes), insect repellent, hats, boots or waterproof shoes, light jacket, cash, pants for warm weather and VM T-SHIRTS if you already have them. Otherwise, pick up in Baton Rouge.

Thankyou for your courage and good heart,

Jan Houston-Solari

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/9/emw282938.htm

Great America Networks Conferencing Launch Benefits Relief Efforts

Group sends volunteers, offers free conferencing services to relief workers and donates percentage of profits.

CHICAGO (PRWEB) September 9, 2005 -- Newly-launched Great America Networks Conferencing, LLC, a subsidiary of Great America Networks, Inc., the sister company of BTI Communications Group, Ltd., is offering its audio and video conferencing solutions as well as Web-based collaboration applications free of charge to aid relief workers in Louisiana and Mississippi in coordinating rescue and clean up efforts following Hurricane Katrina. Additionally, beginning today until further notice, 10 percent of every new conferencing sale will be donated to charities involved in the relief efforts.

"Countless numbers of relief workers are descending on the devastated areas and overwhelming conventional phone networks," says Reno Provine, President for Great America Networks Conferencing, LLC, and Chief Operations Officer for BTI Communications Group, Ltd. "In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and throughout the long road that lay ahead for the displaced residents of the Gulf Coast area, BTI and Great America Networks pledge to assist in any way possible, including providing conferencing and telecommunications services at no charge to various relief organizations, as well as generous monetary and supply gifts."

"Over the Holiday weekend, BTI put together a relief team that flew out during this crisis scenario to assist on-site with those who desperately need help. This team consisted of Eric Brackett, Chief Executive Officer of BTI, several key employees and their family members who generously volunteered not only their time and finances, but braved the unknown of the New Orleans area and selflessly put others lives and needs ahead of their own,” Provine added. “It is dedication like this that makes BTI a real family-oriented company, and acts of this nature will set a precedence for all companies and individuals to follow."

Returning members of the BTI Relief Team describe the experience as more than just handing out food, water and supplies to survivors. It was about lifting spirits and bringing smiles back into their faces.

"We worked on two different teams, one in St. Charles Parish, and the other one at one of the first Scientology Volunteer Ministry base in New Orleans… Our people didn’t just hand out food and water, we carried out conversations, got people smiling, took them out of their grief and brought them up to present time," says Brackett. "I saw immediate relief and physical change in people that we helped in as little as a minute. We served thousands of families each day we were there."

Brackett continued, "The Scientology Volunteer Ministers are providing organized effective relief where it is needed most in Louisiana. In BTI’s group, Scientologists and non-Scientologists banded together to create change under the leadership and organizational structure of the Volunteer Ministers in concert with the police and the Parish Emergency Operations Personnel."

Patricia Gutierrez, Customer Account Representative for BTI’s Los Angeles branch, went into New Orleans to perform Nerve Assists on the overwhelmed and drained New Orleans Police Officers who were working to bring order and aid to the victims. A Nerve Assist is a technique that applies a healing touch and light pressure to the main nerves running down the spine and branching out into smaller nerve channels and nerve endings that affect muscles.

"At one point an officer tearing up in front of me asked for a Nerve Assist because he had a pounding headache. By the end of the Assist, the tension, tears and frustration I first saw in him were all gone and he walked away thanking me," Gutierrez said. "Most were so amazed that such a simple procedure could work. I felt so proud that I could help."

Dave Hamilton, sales consultant for BTI’s Chicago branch, shared his take on the experience: "This was my first time volunteering for a humanitarian relief effort. I was overwhelmed by the organization, cooperation and teamwork necessary to provide the support needed and wanted by those within New Orleans and the surrounding areas… I felt proud for being a part of the aid efforts and could see the appreciation on the faces of the people we were there to support. I was deeply moved by the whole experience and will do it again."

Extensive Photo album by VM of relief effort. Pictures from Waveland, MS, New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

http://braddva.fotki.com/katrina_hurricaine/

Date: 07 Sep 2005

From: Alice Pero

Subject: LA: New Disaster Relief Headquarters at LA Org

Dear VM's and All Scientologists,

The wins from the VM's on the ground in Louisiana are pouring in. Look for a batch of them from me shortly (I am just catching my breath after being at the Disaster Relief Center all day non-stop working!) I'm sure you have been reading some of them from various sources....

The important data I need to get out to you right away is this: PLEASE USE THE DISASTER RELIEF HEADQUARTERS before calling the West US VM office. We are manning up the org board and people will be there to receive and handle your calls. This is at the LA Org in the Dianetics Reception area.

We will help with logistics and transportation. We are liaisoning with VM I/C WUS and the VM Hotline.

We need at least 800 more VM's on the ground ASAP. We're waiting to hear from you....

.

Alice Pero
VM Comm LA

Date: 08 Sep 2005

From: Alice Pero

Subject: "Translating" LRH terms, KSW

Dear Folks,

Recently a couple of emails have been sent to non-Scn friends and family based on the post "From the Front Lines, VM Heroes in New Orleans." These had the Scn terms defined in regular English for non-Scn's. In some cases not all the terms were translated.

There is a KSW issue here. If these "translated" terms get out broadly to non-Scn's, there is no qual or issue authority on the data. There is no Source ack or copyright.

For personal letters this is fine, but for going out broadly, it's not okay. We want people to get the straight dope from Source.

My suggestion is that if someone wants a non-Scn friend or family to get the good news, that ALL Scn terms be removed.

For example: instead of "Then he began to itsa..." one could say "Then he began to talk of his troubles...." etc.

If you really want to use Scn terms and then define them for people, go "all the way" and obtain Issue Authority for it.

(That may be a stretch, but it also might be a valuable contribution.)

Love,
Alice
VM Comm LA

Date: 8 Sep 2005

From: Alice Pero

Subject: The stories keep pouring in from the VM's....

Dear Friends,

These wins are the reason we need to mobilize even more VM's to turn the tide of destruction into theta. This is an opportunity of a lifetime to help 1,000's of beings, give them a hope factor

SOMETHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT. Please note: There have been a number of Solo NOTs auditors who have been going to the Disaster Relief sites. This is very needed and wanted!

Please contact your local VM I/C and contribute to the motion. We need 800 more VM's on the ground NOW. If in LA contact the VM Disaster Relief Headquarters at the LA Org.

From Jerrye Albert....

Yes, the children are beautiful. Doe eyed babes with yearning, yet shining eyes framed in rich thick dark eyelashes. Trusting, oh so trusting. They touch, they hug, they don't want to let go. They look directly at you, eyes to eyes. We sang a song, and then each one of them in turn became the teacher leading the rest of us.
We danced. A young boy child taught me a rap step, that is, he tried. I still can't figure out how he could slide his feet and move his hands that way. Wish I could.

At the Port Allen shelter there was a wee babe, a 2 month old infant, who was very very congested in the head and chest, and he was burning with fever. He had not slept that night. The doctor saw him and prescribed antibiotics for him. By mid afternoon the antibiotics had not yet been delivered. I was concerned as the baby had fallen into a stupor like condition and was not moving, not responding. No food, either.

I asked a Volunteer Minister, a yellow shirt, to give him a nerve assist, which anyone can learn in several minutes. After about 4-5 minutes, the baby began to stretch, then move his arms and legs around, and a short while later he opened his eyes. He looked around, and tried to grab the girl's finger, which she let him do. At this point we knew the assist was completed. His fever had broken. He was smiling and looking at everyone when we left.

Later in the day I went to check on him, as a follow up, to see if another assist was warranted. He was happy as could be. He was eating again. I had already hatted his grandmother about why he needed acidopholus with the antibiotic, and she was putting yogurt into his milk. He was active as could be, smiling at everyone, and it was wonderful.

Last Monday at the Baton Rouge Mission a woman arrived who wanted to join the VM's, as she wanted very much to help. She had flown in from the northeastern area of the country. I showed her around the Mission and the VM wing to orient her, and in our conversation it came out that she was a born again Christian, but had chosen our group to work with as she had heard we were not there to preach, but rather, to really help. She also told me her daughter was coming in on Thursday from the east coast, and she was a chiropractor, and she wanted to be a Volunteer Minister too.

I then told her about the assist course, which teaches you actual ways to assist people so they get better, as it enables the spirit to heal the body, and the other course, Handling the Dangerous Environment. All Volunteer Ministers take these 2 courses first.

I introduced her to the course supervisor so she could begin the courses. They only take a few hours, and then you can go out and truly perform the miracles such as the one with the infant. Lots of chiropractors do these nerve assists with their adjustments, I am told.

A fellow Volunteer Minister, Debbie, saw a woman who was very upset. She asked her if she needed some help. The woman did not know where her mother was. She was quite concerned because she is an asthmatic, and she knew her mother would be frantic about her. She had not been able to get through to her mom to alleviate her fears. Debbie gave her a cell phone to use, and she called her aunt, to see if she knew where her mother was. Her mother answered the phone. The woman cried and cried on the phone ...nothing more need be written here.

There are so many stories to be told here. Just a few of the many occurrences in Baton Rouge...

At Lamar Dixon center...A woman was sitting totally still and staring into space. Her children were in chairs around her, quite sad, waiting for her to communicate. I saw this. I went over and sat down next to her and asked her if she wanted to tell me anything. No response. I waited a bit, and then repeated my question. No response. I waited again and repeated my question. A few tears ran down her cheeks. She had come up to grief. Very gently, I quietly told her: "That's ok. You can cry. There's nothing wrong with that. Go ahead. It's ok." and etc. She began to cry. She cried and cried. Then she told me all about losing her mother, not knowing where she was, and also that her cousin had just died in a New Orleans hospital, where he had been a patient...he was in his '30's. Someone came along at that point and asked her to go somewhere. She did. Later that day, she saw me and came up to me and simply said a heartfelt: "Thank you."

At both Lamar Dixon and also at Port Allen, I did art drawing with children. At first there were pictures of houses, rain falling from clouds, tornados, and the water covering most of the houses. Several days later...pictures with the sun shining, Halloween witches and monsters, and so on. Quite a difference!

At Port Allen I met 2 of the most creative intelligent children ever. One of them showed me a dance and sang a song she had written. It was incredible. The other one was so quick witted, and she ran the family. She was only about 3 or 4 years old. I will never forget these 2.

Children respond very well to singing and clapping your hands, and etc. There is much to do there, from handling a sick infant to singing and drawing, and mainly...just listening. It is listen style auditing. By now you know about all the missing family members...not knowing if they were alive or dead. This is the worst part of it. The best part of it is that they easily come up the tone scale, and look to creating a future. And that's what counts.

And there are people adopting families and committing to supporting them for months until they get on their feet again. This is an incredible outpouring of help and love from all over the country.

The media is doing the usual gloom and doom. Really, it's all about people helping each other, and loving each other. I saw a great deal of love there, from many volunteers from many different groups. That's what matters.

ml,
Jerrye Albert

From VM Hotline....

Volunteer Ministers are currently located in 16 or more locations in Baton Rouge, LaFayette and New Orleans and other surrounding areas.VMs are now being dispatched into Mississippi to start relief efforts there One VM helped 13 people find their families as well as some orphaned babies.

A young man contacted us and said that he and three of his friends could no longer stand watching the news and doing nothing. They were calling from Michigan en route to Louisiana by car to help. He was a bit dejected because they could not find anywhere how they could assist. There was great relief and appreciation when they found out that we would accept their offered help and could use them as part of our volunteer relief team

At one shelter a young man started screaming for help. He was holding his mother in his arms. The VMs ran to him and immediately brought order, clearing the crowd. The woman was having a cardiac arrest. A Volunteer Minister did an assist on the woman and after a bit she started breathing again. She was rushed to the hospital. The next day, she was visited by our VM team who proceeded to do an additional assist on the woman and she is now on the recovery.

From Jan Houston-Solari....

PLEASE SHARE THIS STORY FAR & WIDE

My daughter Dana is in charge of the command center for the Volunteer Minister ("VM") relief effort now operating in New Orleans and surrounding parishes. Their duty is to provide comfort to thousands of over-worked police, military and volunteer emergency personnel. She asked me to share this story. She said that, of all the moving and touching reports of physical rescue and spiritual assistance she is part of, this one simple event exemplifies the heart of the matter:

In the ruins of downtown New Orleans, a tall, lean National Guardsman - dog-tired but with a look of strong purpose in in his eyes - approached a group of Volunteer Ministers from the Disaster Relief Team of the Church of Scientology.

"Excuse me, Sir" the Guardsman inquired.
"Do you have a pair of sox?"

"Yes, I think we do," a Minister replied, and he produced a bag of sox and handed the bag to the Guardsman.

The Guardsman pulled out one pair of clean white cotton sox.

"Would you like any more?"

"No, sir. I just need a pair of sox. I've been in that sewage water for 5 hours. But I saved two people's lives."

The lives he saved were two elderly women who had been stranded in a flooded house, taking care of each other, for a week. He had managed to carry them out and to safety.

The Guardsman said he asked the ladies "How did you survive?" One replied, "Son, I've been through worse."

Alice Pero
VM Comm LA

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/nation/12618164.htm

11 Sept 2005

Scientologists offer hands-on relief for rescuers

BY DAVID OVALLE

Knight Ridder Newspapers

NEW ORLEANS - (KRT) - Joe Wisdom, a 30-year-old Coral Gables, Fla., resident, has arrived as part of the massive disaster relief effort mounted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

He's no firefighter or cop - he's part of the Church of Scientology Disaster Relief Team.

Members of the much-publicized religion, founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, have set up a yellow tent at a police staging ground near the Canal Street Ferry Terminal, and are giving cops and soldiers body rubs known as "nerve assists," administering shots and handing out clean socks, underwear, medicine and food.

The Scientologists have silver sports utility vehicles with yellow magnets bearing their names, and pamphlets and framed press clippings touting their beliefs. One article, which ran in The New York Times, describes their efforts in setting up relief areas after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We've been very well received," said Wisdom, who works as a real estate broker and is one of more than 400 church members assisting in the New Orleans area. "All preconceived notions of us have been thrown out the window. I think they see we're here to help."

The church, based in Clearwater, Fla., has been the subject of much scrutiny in recent months, with actor Tom Cruise publicly advocating its beliefs, saying Scientology can cure addiction and depression.

Members do not worship a deity. Instead they believe people are immortal spirits troubled by mental blocks. The church boasts 5,200 centers worldwide, runs drug rehabilitation and education programs and claims some nine million members.

One of the church's most high profile members, actor John Travolta, has arrived in New Orleans, and accompanied rescue workers on a tour of hard-hit St. Bernard Parish last week.

Wisdom and the other Scientologists say they aren't here to preach.

Instead, they administer the nerve assists: A soldier or a police officer - even some reporters - lay down on a narrow, cushioned bed, the type chiropractors use. Wisdom and other members run their fingers in broad, outward strokes down the spine and lower back. They then turn the person around and rub with a similar motion along the ribs, even down to the feet.

Nerve assists last about 10 minutes and are supposed to release built-up "standing waves," or tension.

"It's a method developed by L. Ron Hubbard," Wisdom said, adding "It isn't necessarily meant to replace a chiropractor or medical attention."

At least one New Orleans cop was thrilled.

"It was great. It was very relaxing," said Sgt. John Deshotel, 41, who has been working virtually nonstop since Hurricane Katrina hit.

What he knew about Scientology before the disaster? "Not a thing," Deshotel said. "But I'm glad they're here."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0911katrina-religion11.html

Faithful are serving needs of evacuees

Bodies and souls receive attention from churches

Greg Livadas
(Rochester, N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle
11 Sept 2005

BATON ROUGE, La. - Hurricane Katrina survivors who still don't know where to turn are getting a suggestion from members of a wide range of faith communities: Turn to a higher power.

"A lot of these people are depressed, humiliated, disgusted and busted," the Rev. Daniel Wells, pastor of I've Had Enough Outreach Ministries in Baton Rouge, said Saturday. "Our mission today is to give them hope, to let them know this isn't the end. This is the beginning of a new life."

Wells helped sponsor the one-day Carnival of Hope, where children staying at the River Center in Baton Rouge could play basketball and football, fly kites or get their faces painted. About 1,200 evacuees remained at the shelter Saturday.

Members of the various religious groups helping storm victims keep the faith are identifiable by the colors they wear: Presbyterians wear green shirts; yellow shirts mean Scientologists.

Wells, wearing a gray shirt identifying his church, said he wanted to get involved after seeing children using cardboard to slide down the grassy slope of the levee of the neighboring Mississippi River.

"We wanted to bring toys for the kids to play with, but there was all this red tape getting inside (the shelter)," Wells said. "So we said to heck trying to go inside; we'll go outside."

Standing on a stage directly outside the River Center, about 25 members of the "praise team" from First Presbyterian Church in Baton Rouge sang to anyone who would listen during Saturday's carnival.

"We want to see Jesus lifting high," they sang.

Audrey McWilliams, 67, of New Orleans, danced in circles to the music in front of the stage as she held a purple helium-filled balloon and a bag of popcorn. She had just come to the shelter after being hospitalized for a viral infection she caught from contaminated floodwater.

"They said inside to come out and enjoy yourself and try to relax," McWilliams said. "I needed that. The Lord has brought us a long way, and we've got a lot to be thankful for."

The singers continued: "Yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so," as the Presbyterians offered free Bibles.

"We just wanted to give people some hope," said Emily Moseley, assistant youth director at First Presbyterian. "It's not really about our churches. We're just here to share hope."

Among the largest and most visible religious volunteers were the Scientologists, who offered what they called free "assists" - light back rubs on massage tables.

"We're here to help as many people as possible," said Judy Fagerman, a volunteer minister coordinator of the Church of Scientology in Tampa.

About 70 young volunteers from Adventures in Missions, based in Gainesville, Ga., also showed up outside the River Center. Wearing brown shirts, they helped the Red Cross reunite families and assisted other storm victims in filling out forms.

"If we get a chance to share Christ, we will," said Hannah Sterling, 23, of Maryville, Tenn. "We want to make an eternal investment, not just a physical one."

Other faith groups worked behind the scenes.

Cindy Lang, who teaches Hebrew at B'nai Israel synagogue in Baton Rouge, said the synagogue was being used as a shelter for up to 40 New Orleans residents.

The temple contacted Jewish families in Miami, who offered to fly up to 30 displaced families to Miami and give them a place to live free for a year. Eight families, none of them Jewish, have taken the offer so far.

Sitting on the concrete steps on the quieter side of the levee, Joshua Davis, 14, who lived in New Orleans, was comforted by Amy Broussard, 37, and her daughter, Ashley, 14.

Joshua was separated from his entire family, who are now in Chicago. He planned to fly there to reunite with them.

Broussard, a member of Baton Rouge University Baptist Church, let Joshua use her cellphone to call his mother.

"It's a sad story," he said, "but it'll have a good ending."

Around the country, evacuees are having plenty of opportunities to worship.

Kimberly Boudreaux, 35, who fled New Orleans with 10 relatives in two cars, is a Baptist but found herself holding hands and praying with Methodists at a shelter at First United Methodist Church in Dumas, Ark. They knew she was anxious about her elderly aunt, Marion Gooden, whose whereabouts are unknown.

"We were asking God, please, somehow send a message to us," Boudreaux said.

At First Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., church members held a prayer meeting for the 70 or so evacuees who have been using the building as a shelter.

Includes information from the Associated Press

http://wvgazette.com/section/News/2005090955

Another location with VMs

West Virginia Gazette

September 10, 2005

Ministries, other nonprofits help out

By Dave Gustafson
Staff writer

GRETNA, La. -

[...]

Some hurricane survivors arrive in total grief and explode into tears when a stranger who could be from another continent hands them a bag of ice and a kind word, said Brian Duimovich of Ventura, Calif., who leads the Church of Scientology volunteer ministry effort in Gretna.

The group's bright yellow shirts command much attention on the corner of Franklin Street, and sometimes people stop to hear about their church.

Duimovich simply says: Scientologists help people.

"Our [religion's] founder, L. Ron Hubbard, believed that if people get in alignment and live to help each other, the world would be a so much better place to live," he said.

Because of the shelter shortage for volunteers, the Scientologist ministers must commute 61/2 hours each day on the packed roads to Baton Rouge, Duimovich said. There, they are sleeping 40 or 50 volunteers to one home on every available flat area.

Like most relief groups in Gretna, they were asked for manpower by the mayor.

In addition to handing out supplies, the Scientologist ministers have offered "locationals", a short intervention process that refocuses a person's attention on tangible things, such as a nearby telephone pole rather than past trauma.

"A lot of people look really lost, not really here," Duimovich said. "We're trying to bring them to the present time. It's hard for them to move forward."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/storm/content/local_news/epaper/2005/09/11/s1a _lewis_0911.html

[This article is from Gulfport and confirms the presence of VMs]

"The Scientology Disaster Relief team already was set up on the grass near the gymnasium"

Date: 9 Sep 2005

From: "Jenna"

Subject: Family Finders VM Team

From: Mandy W-P

Dear All,

Laurie Argall is firing out from Clearwater to Louisiana with a digital camera, a laptop and three other people. Their mission is to go from shelter to shelter helping to reunite families by posting their picture and information on the 'net, or by searching the 'net to find missing family members and get them in touch with each other. They will have forms for people to fill out who are looking for loved ones.

This is a CRITICAL problem right now. Could YOU go forward with your life if your 4 year old was missing? Could you make plans to move out of the shelter if you didn't know where your husband was?

What is needed RIGHT NOW:

1) A ton of VM's ( Scn's or not, I don't care) with laptops and digital cameras and walkie-talkies to go in teams to ANY of the shelters ANYWHERE in the country and help get these people reunited with each other.

2) Someone who can research the different "missing people" web sites on the net and tell us which one is best to use for this purpose. There are a bunch - I'd like to know which one is best.

3) Better yet, is anyone out there capable of creating this web site for us on an immediate basis? We could post housing and job opportunities on there too, later. It would need to be able to easily accept uploaded pictures and information, be well-organized with different categories, and fully searchable. There may be a good one on the net already - I have not found it.

This project can be coordinated through me and Laurie Argall.

I am volunteering to run this project through Evelyn Wulf in the I-Help office at Flag. Let me know if you plan to go. Even if you can just go for a couple of days. Or sponsor someone to go. If you reunite just ONE family, your trip will have changed their lives from 'unlivable' to 'now let's get out of this shelter and get on with our lives'.

Please - I am begging you - help me sleep at night - go find somebody's child, or husband, or mom, or other relative. You will be my hero if you do.

The stat of this project is 'Number of People Reunited with a Friend or Family Member'.

Please feel free to forward this communication - I am just on the Razzline list.

ML,

Mandy W

Date: 9 Sep 2005

From: "Jane"

Subject: Our son, Nick James, in Baton Rouge

Our son, Nick, arrived in Baton Rouge on Tuesday. He's been assigned to a shelter that is currently housing 400 evacuees. He's delivering assists, and hatting evacuees on delivering assists. He seemed particularly pleased that yesterday he hatted two kids on touch assists and after that, the kids were then going around and delivering assists to other evacuees.

These people now have workable tech that they can use - and they know how to use - to help one another. They are spreading calm. They have tools with which to destimulate others. Nick is just 14 - and he is creating this great effect. I am so proud of him - and I am so proud of EVERYONE who is helping to make this enormous help happen in Baton Rouge and Lafayette and New Orleans.

Nick is staying in donated housing with other Volunteer Ministers. He's sleeping on a donated air mattress and donated sleeping bag. His ticket to Baton Rouge was also donated. I personally want to thank everyone who has donated money or items or plane tickets for the VMs to use in Baton Rouge. And to the anonymous person who donated the ticket for Nick - thank you in particular!

More VMs are still needed. Many of the VMs there now will need to return home to their jobs and families - and they will need to be replaced. If you want to go help, but can't afford the tickets, please contact IHELP EUS, or IHELP WUS, or LA Org (if you are in the Los Angeles area.) Your help is very much needed, and logistics can be worked out!

If you cannot go, your donations are still needed for airfare and other things.

ML,

Jane James

Date: 11 Sep 2005

From: Alice Pero

Subject: Direct from the Mission Holders Holding the Fort in Baton Rouge!

To My Heroes Mission Holder and Mission staff and all our friends

Dear Guys,

The response from ya'll has been tremendous! We are so proud to belong to a team of such beings, who, like the cavalry of old, ride to the sound of the guns to place themselves where the action is, where the going is toughest, where the need is greatest, where the hopes are the lowest, and save the day!

We thought we should get a comm to you about what we have been able to accomplish over the last 10 days as a result of all the support and help you have given us. We have so many unbelievable miracle wins and I will try to tell you a few of them. It has truly been, and continues to be a total religious experience for all involved.

The VMs are reporting wins from each of our locations (we have 22 teams out), any one of which would be enough to open up an entire area to Scientology and be the subject of a week long Disney tear-jerking mini-series!

Musters are often tear-fests. This is life at its richest; this is what it's all about.

Right now we have over 300 VMs on the ground at the various locations just in Louisiana We have had well over 400 arrive, with a bunch terminating and going home. Many of the ones who had to go home, left only to arrange their lives a bit better so that they can come back.

We have guys coming and going daily, and we have built a complete organization to handle the flow, along with housing, feeding, transport of people and supplies, ethics, medical and qual lines, training etc., etc., etc. It is unbelievable!

We have re-united families who had been split up by the evacuation process, who didn't know if their mothers or fathers or children were even still alive!

We perform assists, locationals and Book 1 on whole teams of rescue workers, and our guys in the yellow shirts are escorted through checkpoints and blockades without question. We've given locationals to rescue workers who finally separated out from the horror of what they've been put through.

We did Book 1 on a policeman who got rid of a headache (he'd been maced in a training exercise), somatics and ugly pictures he's carried around for years. To have this 280 pound, automatic rifle-toting, ammo-belt strapped veteran of who knows how many violent altercations, who has seen death and human degradation first-hand, sob with relief on your shoulders after you've truly helped him, thanking you for his life, is something to experience.

We have fire chiefs, police captains, mayors and other state officials asking us for help.

To continue to operate at this level, we still need your help. We need:

- Volunteer Ministers. We need more VMs. They cannot be under 18 years of age. Bring sleeping bag and air mattress.

- Money. DO NOT SEND CLOTHING OR FOOD. The needs vary minute to minute, and if we have the money itself, we can provide exactly what's needed and wanted at the time to the people who need it.

That's it, money and volunteers. And your postulates.

Thanks again for your support and response thus far. We are truly creating a sane environment!

Ml,

Tom and Cathy Steiner

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/Issues/2005-09-14/news/unreal.html

14 Sept 2005

Count Us In

With hundreds of thousands in the Gulf Coast states of the U.S. homeless or without electricity from hurricane Katrina, Scientology Volunteer Ministers are being dispatched to the area to help with the emergency relief effort.... If you are not a trained Volunteer Minister contact us and we will train you in hours and get you involved with our relief efforts.

-- Posted at www.volunteerministers.org

Nothing quite brings out our humanity like a natural disaster. When we learned that the Church of Scientology was dispatching an estimated 1,000 "Volunteer Ministers" to the Gulf Coast, Unreal was eager to sign on. Still, pretty much all we know about Scientology is that personality-test thingie we took once -- and truth be told, we randomly filled it out.

How might we help refugees "resolve problems in all areas -- children, personal conflict, anguish or upset and emotional shock, substance abuse, learning problems...?" We gave the ol' Scientology 800 number a spin.

Volunteer Minister: Volunteer Ministers, can I help you?

Unreal: Hi there! Can I go to Louisiana with you guys if I'm not a Volunteer Minister?

We can train you. It takes about 24 hours -- 48 hours -- it depends on the person, you know. We can also train you down there.

What's it take?

The ability to communicate to people and find out what's needed and wanted.

Like, food, water and clothing?

Yeah, but we're mainly giving them "assists" -- which is something that allows people to get in the present time and function better. It also relieves built-up pains, stuff like that.

Wow, a lot of refugees are in the past? What sorts of pains?

It's not just the refugees. We help you unload. We bring in lots of trucks and stuff. We have an operation where we can use people to assist the policemen and firemen. Basically, you just have to have a communication cycle. It's not difficult. You just find out what they need and provide that assistance.

Would you hold me?

Yeah. Well, not necessarily.

No?

Mostly people need "assists" right now -- it's basically like a locational in the area; you get back into communication with the environment and get out of the past.

Sounds helpful!

Yeah. We have about 400 [volunteer ministers] on the ground and about another 400 en route.

From: SMI East US [smieastus@smi.org]

Sent: 3 September 2005

To: xxxxx

Subject: [Fwd: Lastest Update Scientology VM Disaster relief]

"Volunteer Ministers are here, thank god!" were the words of Senator Mary Landan as she approached Lamar Dixon Sheltor in Baton Rouge where Volunteer Ministers were diligently helping everyone in sight. She shook hands with each VM that was on the ground. The Senator's Aide asked a VM how they got there so fast and the response, "An email was sent out asking for help and Scientologists responded from all over just like they did for 9/11 and the tsunami."

As trauma and confusion ensues Scientology Volunteer Ministers are on the ground putting in order and stability. A VM found a woman who was in shock, crying and starting to almost go unconsious. She gave her a locational for 25 minutes and by the end she topped crying and was able to move around.

In Lafayette Volunteer Ministers got 13 people out of the shelter and placed in homes and jobs!

The Homeland Security Director in Vermillion Parish said this when an SP ordered all Volunteer Ministers off the premises of the shelter, "If the Scientologists go then the refugees go also and that he would contact the newspaper and it would be in the morning press that the Baptist Church kicked out the homeless."

We are now set up in 5 main shelters and are about to open up 4 more, and that is just the beginning. We actually need 1000s of volunteers to deal with this as so many people need our help.

Our teams right now are operating out of Lafayette, Baton Rouge and are now just setting up in New Orleans. New Orleans can only be described as a complete disaster zone. People are wandering the streets in a daze (and no they are not violent despite what the press is making it out to be they actually need our help to rebuild their livesand their state). 1000 Volunteer Ministers are needed on the ground right now. Society and mankind needs your help. This is the largest mobilization of our corps in history.

From: "Scientology Mission of Alexandria"

To: xxxxxx

Subject: Hurricane Katrina - The most effective disaster response team!

Date: 11 Sep 2005

"If this is Scientology, then I am a Scientologist."
- new orleans city official

In the worst and best of times, a Volunteer Minister is called upon to provide peace, help and sanity no matter what is happening around them-violence, death, insanity or, in the case of Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in over 100 years in the United States.

Volunteer ministers in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Vermillion Parish, Gulfport (Mississippi), Biloxi (Mississippi) and Hattiesburg (Mississippi) apply that every day. Administering Scientology technology to people who have seen the worst that they can imagine and then training them on what will permanently fix it has rewards unimaginable until you see it with your own eyes. Someone dying for the tech, gets it and it CHANGES THEIR LIFE.

Right now, this is what is most needed and wanted:

1. YOU AND ALL YOUR FRIENDS TO GO TO BATON ROUGE AND HELP. THIS IS WHAT YOU WERE TRAINED FOR AS A VOLUNTEER MINISTER AND WHY WE ARE HERE AS SCIENTOLOGISTS.

2. DONATIONS TO KEEP THE VM'S THERE AND FOR FLIGHTS, ETC. THIS INCLUDES FREQUENT FLIER MILES TO FLY VM'S THERE.

Your help can make a HUGE difference.

LATEST WINS AND SUCCESSES

A VM at the Lamar Dixon shelter helped NBC (off camera) to find families to relocate to South Dakota. They had not been having luck by announcing the chance of relocationg over the PA system so the VM introduced them to families. The VM really ack'd the NBC girl for doing this and the girl started crying from the emotion of it.

A VM at the same shelter came upon a woman who was in tears. Her husband was in the New Orleans Police Department and she had been staying at someone's house with 3 kids and had no money and couldn't get any help. She was completely distraught. The VM took her out for a locational and after a while the woman told the VM to bring her to right people to help her and that she was just going to make her situation go right.

At the Northpark/West Livingston Parish shelter, an official of the relief team who was running the shelter had an issue with the VM's shirts. A VM approached him on this and let them itsa about and gave them a really good ack. It turned out that the official was bummed that he only got to wear a 2" cross but the VM's had these really cool shirts with big crosses. He burst out laughing about how ridiculous it was and there was no more sit.

At the River Center shelter, the VM's handed out hundreds of the WTH's with Isaac Hayes on the cover. The people at the shelter absolutely love them as Isaac is such an OL for them in the black community.

A VM at the same shelter said (before leaving to go home) that being here and working with VM's has totally rehabilitated him as a Scientologist.

Again at the same shelter a lady got a nerve assist and helped the pain in her legs so much that she was no longer dependent on her cane. Another man told a VM that "things seemed calmer" to him after reading WTH.

A Book 1 auditor at the River Center shelter took a girl in for a Dianetics session. She had been stuck in her attic with her mom, sister and grandmother for three days before being rescued and in those three days she watched her grandmother die in front of her. Needless to say she was extremely enturbulated. The VM gave her a 1 ½ hr session and she felt very happy at the end and hadn't felt like that in a long time.

Here is a success story from a man after getting a Book 1 session. "I've never been more fulfilled from talking to any person until I've been approached by Rick. He has given me the strength, power and understanding to make my mind feel at ease. Thank God for him and him helping me. God bless you and keep you Rick."

A VM in Erwinville Shelter gave an assist to a guy as his hand was painful and possibly broken with a brace on. After the assist, his hand felt totally normal and he took off the brace. He wanted to find out more and the VM routed him to the mission. The same VM got another person in comm with the PES of the mission and they are scheduled to go in.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1105755,00.html

The Big Empty
In New Orleans, the calm comes after the storm
By NATHAN THORNBURGH AND KIM HUMPHREYS IN NEW ORLEANS

Outside of the Riverwalk, the deserted tourist promenade on the Mississippi, soldiers in sand-colored t-shirts and camo pants enjoy a organized cook-out lunch under massive tents with red-white-and-blue logos trumpeting "Budweiser Hurricane Katrina Relief." Across the street, workers wearing bright yellow "Scientology Volunteer Minister" t-shirts have their own expansive tent and are offering tetanus shots for rescue workers.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jordan_f_050916_disasters__hurricane.htm

Disasters; Hurricanes FEMA and Povertina Devastated New Orleans

by Jordan Flaherty

[quote from polemical article attacking outsiders]

But the worst damage is what is being done now, this confluence of forces barraging New Orleans and its Diaspora, what some local organizers have referred to as the Disaster Industrial Complex. This is the perfect storm created by an orgy of greed and opportunism engaged in by the jackals of disaster profiteering. The list of those who are gaining from our loss is large, and it includes everyone from the heavily armed thugs of Wackenhut Security and Blackwater USA to the often well-meaning but ineffective bureaucrats of Red Cross and FEMA, to the Scientology missionaries crowding the shelters, to journalists and disaster-gazers taking up a chunk of available housing, to the major multinationals such as Halliburton, working in concert with rich elites from uptown New Orleans seeking partners with which to exploit this tragedy.
These are the institutions and individuals poised to profit from this disaster, while the people of New Orleans face nothing but further dislocation and disempowerment.

From: I HELP East US

To: I HELP Eastern United States

Sent: 18 Sep 2005

Subject: [Fwd: UPDATE - VM'S RESPOND TO HURRICANE KATRINA!]

"The Scientology Disaster Response should be put onto your organizational lines and allow them to assist you in implementing any and all government programs and social programs as they deem necessary." - Government Official

"This experience has been like nothing I have ever experienced. I have either directly or indirectly experienced a heart attack with someone flat lining twice and brought back to life with the correct assist, drug sniffing dogs, a local volunteer who is a drunk and drug addict and prostitute who after putting on our shirt and helping day and night, stopped drinking and became a productive person. We accepted her help without judging her and her background. No words can describe what my last week was like. I could write a book." - New York City VM

Rebuilding an entire area of the United States is now the job of the Scientology Disaster Response Team, manned by the Scientology Volunteer Ministers from around the country and the world.

Below you will find a special story from Gulfport, Mississippi where many were helped.

A SPECIAL STORY

Our VM's rocked a very hard hit little town in Gulfport, Mississippi with Theta and Tech today when over 60 people assembled for an evening of Southern Bar-B-Que, Scientology Service with Group Processing followed by an Assist Seminar to boot!

It all started out on the lawn of a lady who offered up not only her own back yard but her beautiful singing for everyone to experience. Her rendition of Amazing Grace was so aesthetic, people were releasing grief from the hurricane and hugging each other.

Next up to the podium, one of the VM's delivered a beautiful sermon. He started out by letting everyone know that Amen meant I Agree, and that they could shout out Amen or anything they wanted to anytime during the Sermon if they felt like it. With lots of reality, he read from the Bible, and the crowd were screaming Amens, and Halleluiahs! This was followed by LRH's article "What is Greatness" and more Halleluiahs and Amens from the crowd! The service ended with the Prayer for Total Freedom.

Another VM then delivered Scientology Group Processing to the whole outdoor congregation. People were bobbing their heads, touching each other, cracking up laughing. They were all clapping and smiling and at the end and the VM said "they were more in Present Time then ever-that group was really there!"

Next was an Assist Seminar, with everyone drilling the Nerve, Touch and Locational Assists. Once everyone was hatted up, 70 assists were delivered to the people right there in the lady's backyard in Gulfport, Mississippi.

Afterward one of the public hugged our minister and said "God just brought us together, you have blessed my home!"

People are SCREAMING for our help. We must deliver it.

We need YOU to go help along with as many friends as you can muster. We need your donations.

This is and will continue making a major change on the face of this planet.

Your help is VITAL.

Date: 18 Sep 2005

From: "~Val~"

Subject: The VMs in Gulfport

Hi Everybody-

We're on our way home after spending 4 days with the Katrina VM team. It was a religious experience to be there to say the very least. I want to let people know that the 80 or so VMs we left in Gulfport are sleeping on cots in a CB Marine base with several hundred other volunteers. It's hot and humid and buggy and sweaty and they are surrounded by monumental devastation. They are giving assists to National Guard, nurses, locals, any of the myriad relief workers that are here. They are also moving logs out of driveways, cleaning out stinky refrigerators, delivery mops and bleach, sorting clothes and food.

Tone 40 runs rampant. They have meals provided and the county has come up with transportation as of today. They use sanolets and have 15 minute showers at the base. Some of the VMs aren't Scientologists - the just found out about the group and wanted to help, got hatted on assists and were off and running.

Yesterday, we went to Pass Christian where some VMs had gone the day before. There was a makeship distribution point there that some people had thrown up with a tents for supplies, clothing, food and meds. We set up the yellow tent and went to help. On the little road next to the encampment, semis were carrying out full loads of debris every few minutes and they weren't making a dent in the job they had to do. The magnitude of the work to do there is mind boggling and the VMs will be there for some time. That's just Mississippi.

For anyone who wants an adventure of a lifetime, this is your chance. If you can't go, please send money. Please forward this on to anyone can help.

arc,

Valerie
Boulder, CO

Date: 17 Sep 2005

From: Alice Pero

Katrina is not over

Right now our corps of Volunteer Ministers are working their way through Gulfport and into Biloxi Mississippi. They are providing food and supplies to people who desperately need these

Volunteers are knocking on doors and providing the necessities of life, and at the same time they are doing assists and relieving people of their traumas, grief and pain

Our teams are helping to put tarps on roofless houses, remove downed trees, clean up neighborhoods, and all while providing help to the people

VMs are still working at shelters and other facilities around New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and other locations, helping people from morning until late at night

This is not a story about the Volunteer Ministers. The issue here is helping people and to help them to rebuild their lives. EVERY single person there is a hero in their own way. From the men and women that have survived and are working to put their lives back together, to the fire, police, military and rescue personnel who themselves experienced the same traumas and losses and yet have worked tirelessly for days and days to help others

The amount of selfless help to others by all these people and agencies is beyond words. But the job is not done
Doing one assist on one person can change their lives, and has on countless thousands already

Give a person one Book One auditing session and what looked like a hopeless apathetic future is restored to being bright and hopeful. If you can audit Book One, you can change people's lives for real

Katrina left more in its path than just material damage. When the debris is cleared and the electricity is back up, the real issues will still remain unseen and these issues are the pain and loss and trauma (yes - engrams) that these people will have to live with for the rest of their lives - unless they meet a Volunteer Minister

We have a lot of work to do and your help is still needed in Louisiana and Mississippi.

We need people and we need donations to keep our volunteer operation going.

To illustrate the point, one VM found a lady sitting on the side of the street with her belongings - looking totally in apathy. She would hardly go into communication with the Volunteer Minister. Eventually, he got her into a locational and into communication with him. He found out that she had lost her 6 year old daughter. The girl had drowned in her arms and was brought to a hospital and could not be resuscitated. Since then the lady hasn't stayed in a shelter and has been living on park benches - completely caved in. The Volunteer Minister continued giving her assists and got her set up to sleep and is now arranging to get her in for a Book One session

Katrina is NOT over for these people

17 Sep 2005

FROM: Churches of Scientology Disaster Response

URGENT - PLEASE READ AND FORWARD

Scientologists Marty and Amanda St. John, owners of Muttshack Dog Rescue in the Los Angeles area, have been fielding animal rescue teams in and around the New Orleans area to help provide food, water, medical and shelter to thousands of pets locked in homes.

"FROM INSIDE THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS. The situation is desperate. Thousands of pets are dying in locked homes in New Orleans and surrounding communities. An estimated 200,000 animals are still trapped in the city, unable to get fresh food or water. Ninety percent of the city is dry and the streets are mostly cleared now. It is patrolled by police and military and it appears quiet and safe."

Their website http://www.muttshack.org is updated daily with news and information and how you can help them in this effort.

You can also donate money to the group through this site, volunteer for animal rescue work in Louisiana and help get the word out on this situation.

DONATIONS: What is needed and wanted changes on a hour-to-hour basis. For this reason, the St. Johns are asking for cash donations (checks and credit cards too) that can be used for whatever is needed. Go to http://www.muttshack.org for additional information on donations.

ANIMAL RESCUE VOLUNTEERS: If you have any experience working with animals and would like to be a Muttshack VM volunteer, go to http://www.muttshack.org to sign up.

Muttshack is working with the Baton Rouge Mission and will help coordinate your arrival on the scene. Other volunteers with animal experience can also register at this site.

INTERNET COMMUNICATION: Send emails to your friends and families letting them know about muttshack.org and the incredible work they are doing in Louisiana. The website is updated regularly with news, information and photos. You can also get the word out about Muttshack by posting information about the group and its activities on sites such as Craig's List.

Muttshack Dog Rescue is registered through the ASPCA and Homeland Security office to provide Katrina animal rescue and relief work.

Regards,

Dawn Chaban, Area Coordinator
Churches of Scientology Disaster Response
Los Angeles County

[next] Phew! This page is getting far too long, let's start another one!

Thanks to Sarah, Tigger and other OCMB and ARS posters for their efforts in collecting the above and Google News for its excellent search facility.

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