2/7/09 - News Update for NOLA and Call For Help

Hello again friends, gamers, and friends of gamers.

I promised the other day that there would be some good news on the way regarding our NOLA trip, and here it is:

The Brighton, IA chapter of Kids Against Hunger has agreed to donate over 11,000 pre-packaged meals for us to bring to New Orleans for distribution. Kids Against Hunger is an international food relief organization, and they send tens of millions of meals around the globe annually. I recently met the director of the Brighton chapter, and when I explained our trip to New Orleans, he immediately offered to send 55 boxes of these meals along with us.

On the other end, Rachel at The Phoenix of New Orleans put me in touch with Dale from Second Harvest, who will be able to distribute this food to the folks who need it. So this is great news, a wonderful opportunity.

But this is where we might need help--we still need to transport the food down to New Orleans.

There are several options we are investigating, including finding a trucking company with a truck heading from Iowa to New Orleans who would be willing to throw this pallet of food into their trailer for the trip. This would make our job a lot easier, but of course we have no guarantee that we can find something like this. Another possibility is renting a truck and driving the food down ourselves. U-Haul International has agreed to donate $300 towards renting a truck from them. While this is very generous, that would still leave about $700 for the one-way truck rental from Iowa to New Orleans. Another possibility is renting a trailer from U-Haul (possibly as low as $150 after the $300 discount), but for that we would need a vehicle capable of towing the 3600 combined pounds of trailer and food, and surviving the trip from Iowa to NOLA and back (which, sad to say, disqualifies the old pickup in my driveway).

So there's a good chance that we could use your help to get this food to New Orleans. There are still plenty of people in need of basics like housing and decent food, and 'eating what you can find' leads to dangerous malnourishment. These meals from Kids Against Hunger have been specifically created by food scientists to combat malnourishment, to help people start digesting properly, and to get them necessary vitamins. They are a good, good thing.

I will keep you all updated regarding this situation, but I'd ask that you look into whether or not you can help us with this specific goal. If we can't find alternative means, our target is $700 for the U-Haul truck.

Thank you all for continuing to think about us, and for the supportive emails we receive. Please let us know if there is anything we can do for you, and if you have any suggestions about, well, anything at all.

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