Celebrity-Studded Fund-Raising Telethon Returns

Comic Relief, an organization that brought together celebrities like Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, and Robin Williams in fund-raising telethons for the homeless, is back, after an eight-year hiatus, to help raise funds for Hurricane Katrina victims, reports the Associated Press.

Bob Zmuda, the group’s founder and president, said the decision came after he barely escaped the 2004 Asian tsunami while vacationing in Thailand.

“I got severe survivor’s guilt,” he said. He returned to Thailand to volunteer in a morgue that held thousands of bodies. “It was the worst experience in my life, and yet it became the best.”

The event’s proceeds will go toward building traditional “shotgun” houses in New Orleans’ Holy Cross area. The houses can be built for about $145,000 each and sold to low-income families for about $110,000 by a local nonprofit group, Mr. Zmuda said.