Friday, November 28, 2008

Hurricane Ike victims dine in style for Thanksgiving >> www.beaumontenterprise.com - Local

Hurricane Ike victims dine in style for Thanksgiving >> www.beaumontenterprise.com - Local:
"Dianne Stout and her husband are living in their shed in Bridge City after their home was flooded in Hurricane Ike.

The couple, along with their grown children and three grandchildren, eight all together, gathered for Thanksgiving dinner Thursday.

'We would've been satisfied to have a ham sandwich together,' she said.....
The Stout family was among about 200 people, most of them affected by Ike, who had a free Thanksgiving dinner at The Palms special events center"

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Work in Friendship

Good turnout, getting much done in friendship

Friday, November 21, 2008

It is official! We are going to Bridge City

It has been 99% certain for about a week, but it is now official. Bridge City Texas, here we come!

We will be working with the Churches of Christ Disaster Response Team.

Churches of Christ Disaster Response Team - Hurricane Katrina - Tornados - Floods - Hurricanes:
"The entire town of Bridge City was under water. EVERY family was flooded. They DESPERATELY and URGENTLY need our help! Please click on the link to the blog on the left of this page for more details."
In an email I got the following:
"Our relief effort is set up in the Bridge City Community Center. We are currently distributing supplies, cooking and serving meals to the community (600 - 800 per day) as well as gutting and cleaning houses and beginning the rebuilding stage.
We have a separate area set up for guys and girls dorm rooms (complete with air mattresses) as well as laundry facilities and a (6) stall shower trailer with continuous instant hot water Smile emoticon We provide continental breakfast, lunch and dinner for all volunteers.
We also have our tool trailers onsite so everything you will need to work with is here.
We will need everyone in your group to individually go online to our website http://www.churchesofchristdrt.org and fill out the "volunteer sign up form". Once they have done that, they will receive an email reply with a list of "need to know" items for your trip."
We will be flying down. Fly into Houston's George Bush International Airport. We will rent a van (or two) and make trips to Bridge City beginning on January 5 afternoon. We will leave on the 17th.

So if you are going:
1. Book a flight
2. Log onto the Church of Christ website and sign up
3. Email BonaResponds@sbu.edu the confirmations


So let's get moving! We need people to help get the word out, fliers, get an article in the BV, on The Buzz, in OTH, etc. Want 25 volunteers at least.

FAQs
  1. We will be subsidizing the trip by at least $50 a person for the first 20 Bona Students or employees (or Alumni and Olean Community) people to sign up. After that it will probably be $40 a person through December 5th. (just think, we could subsidize it more if the University hadn't reimposed the 5% fee on our fund raising AFTER they said last year that they were done!)
  2. Open to anyone. (16 and up is fine with parent)
  3. Yes you can come for a portion of the trip. We'd love to have you if only for a few days.
  4. Alumni and community, PLEASE come. We need your work but also it helps students to see importance and that you can serve as both role models and add some maturity.
  5. You are not too old. We can find work for you. If nothing else, we will need drivers to pick people up at airport etc.
  6. Faculty: come on out. It will be the most fun you have, you will help people more than you can imagine, and you will learn that your students are by and large great people! To date very few of you have participated. I am not sure if it is because you are scared or what, but it is VERY fun and the right thing to do.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Friendship this Sunday!

Spoke with Ed and Donna this AM, they really could use some help!

Leaving Sunday at 10:00 from Back of Murphy. Return about 2:00.

Dress warmly!

Laura and Ashley put up new BonaResponds window display at the Allegany Park and Shop. it looks very good. Thanks!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Handicapped by severe lack of

Handicapped by severe lack of volunteers but getting some insulation done. . really need vols as ed's health worse

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Bridge City Texas info

Here is some background on Bridge City from Wikipedia..
"Bridge City is a city in Orange County, Texas, United States. The population was 8,651 at the 2000 census. The town borders the Neches River and Cow Bayou. It is part of the Beaumont–Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area .The city was originally named Prairie View, as it was located on the coastal grasslands of the upper Texas coastline"

"In 2008, the storm surge generated by Hurricane Ike caused nearly complete flooding of Bridge City. Mayor Kirk Roccaforte estimated that only 14 homes in the city were unaffected by the surge."
The Bridge City official website: As of November 10th, the following rules were still in place

*CURFEW STILL IN EFFECT – 10 PM UNTIL 6 AM
*BOIL WATER NOTICE LIFTED ON 9/26/08

TRASH SHOULD BE SEPARATED IN 3 PILES:

1. WHITE GOODS/ ELECTRONICS/APPLIANCES
2. SHEETROCK/CARPET/BUILDING MATERIALS
3. HAZARDOUS WASTE/PAINTS"

KOGT Photo Gallery- powered by SmugMug-- Here are over 200 pictures of the flooding and recovery efforts from Ike in and around Bridge City.

I have also temporarily added an RSS Topix feed to the right hand side of the blog. It will keep us up to date on news from Bridge City.

Still awaiting official word on whether this is where we will be or not. Come to the meeting tonight and find out. also possible still a few places in Louisiana and Galveston.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Two Videos from Bridge City

Still waiting to hear for sure, but this is possibly where we are going. Good video!



and a second video:

Bridge City TX Hurricane Ike Photo's

Bridge City TX Hurricane Ike Photo's-
-here are some pictures of where we may be going!

January 5-17, 2009

Monday, November 10, 2008

BonaResponds meeting Thurs 8:30PM.murphy aud

BonaResponds meeting Thurs 8:30PM.murphy aud C topics incl gulf coast trips and fundraising.bring ur friends.

Saturday, November 08, 2008

LOCAL DAY CANCELED

We have to cancel tomorrow's local day (Sunday Nov 9). The house in Friendship has much work to do, but like many Wall Street firms the owners need some money. If anyone wants to help organize a fund raiser for them, please let me know.

The weather forecast (rain, wind, and possibly snow) does not make working on Bob's Woods sound like much fun. Given the work is not an emergency situation, we will postpone it until nicer weather.

If the weather is nicer than expected or if any of you really want to do it, please email me and I will go out and work with you for a while.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Local day Sunday 10 to

Local day Sunday 10 to 2 in Friendship and maybe bobs woods. meet 950 at murphy

SSRN-Do Voters Appreciate Responsive Governments? Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief by Shawn Cole, Andrew Healy, Eric Werker

Not sure if this is a finance paper or a BonaResponds paper, but I found it interesting. Note it was written way before the recent election and is a good reason for governments to respond quickly (and to allow volunteer groups to do so too!) to disasters.

SSRN-Do Voters Appreciate Responsive Governments? Evidence from Indian Disaster Relief by Shawn Cole, Andrew Healy, Eric Werker:
"Using rainfall, public relief, and election data from India, we examine how governments respond to adverse shocks and how voters react to these responses. The data show that voters punish the incumbent party for weather events beyond its control. However, we find evidence that fewer voters punish the ruling party when the party responds vigorously to the crisis. Moreover, severe crises are associated with increased voter sensitivity to disaster assistance. These results are consistent with models of government accountability, and provide an explanation for Amartya Sen's claim that democratic governments respond better to salient emergencies than to less conspicuous ones. Even so, the results suggest that even the most responsive government will fare worse in the subsequent election than had there been no disaster."