After Katrina: Business and Volunteer Efforts

To make sure products donated by businesses make it to disaster victims, new efforts need to be made to involve companies in relief efforts, reports The Washington Post.

Business Executives for National Security, a nonprofit advisory group that represents disaster-related companies, released a proposal this week designed to improve coordination of such donations and otherwise better involve businesses in disaster-response efforts. The report came after businesses were angry that many donations never made it to their intended recipients after Hurricane Katrina.

Plus: Volunteer efforts are outpacing the government’s work to rebuild the Gulf Coast, reports The Washington Post.

In a look at one small town in Mississippi, the newspaper notes that charities or volunteers are undertaking at least 80 percent of the rebuilding effort.

Almost none of the $3.2-billion in federal aid for homeowners in that state has reached residents of the town of Pearlington, and charities and residents fear that as memories fade, they could see a decline in the number of volunteers making trips there to help.

“If it wasn’t for the good American citizens coming here, we’d be in a world of hurt,” Chuck Benvenutti, Hancock County representative on the Governor’s Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding, Renewal, tells the Post.

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