Everyone tells you that you will see overwhelming tragedy and devastation when you visit New Orleans. Everyone says it looks like a war zone. On the news there have been plenty of pictures of debris and trash, broken houses, abandoned neighborhoods. And, all of those images speak the truth. The destruction is unbelievable, something most [...]

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Celebration is something that I thought would be difficult in New Orleans – even almost nine months after Hurricane Katrina. The neighborhoods through which we have driven this week look like they belong in a war-torn nation – the entire interior of houses blown out, streets caked in dirt and debris, collapsed roofs, the overwhelming [...]

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This week I am with a team in New Orleans hosting a book distribution for First Book’s response to the Gulf Region hurricanes – Book Relief. Townsend Press and the National Wildlife Federation together donated 100,000 new books and magazines for us to distribute to programs on the Gulf Coast. I’m here with my colleagues [...]

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I just wanted to take a chance to say thank you to all of our volunteers who helped us at our Mobile Alabama distribution last week. Everything about the distribution went well and we have you guys and gals to thank for it. We recieved this thank you shortly after we returned home: Please let [...]

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The new crew of volunteers from the Biloxi Hands On site arrived today – from Berkley! What a great group of college students and university staff! All of our volunteers have been so grateful, appreciative, and happy. We are so lucky to work with such phenomenal women and men. Wednesday was, yet again, unbelievable…

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Well, yesterday was Tuesday. I have to admit – I was really concerned at our afternoon team meeting. It was 2:30, I hadn’t moved a box all day, we had sent everyone back to the camp site, and our discussion was centered around what we could think of for the next two days to arrange [...]

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When you think about book distributions these words are probably not the first that come to mind: hiking, singing, canoeing, barbeque, and campfire. (Well, singing might – but belting out “Life is a Highway” on your third trip to Wal-Mart of the week isn’t exactly what we’re talking about.) Last night Elizabeth, Tabitha, Kevin and [...]

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Blog readers beware: What happens in Bernice, no longer stays in Bernice….thanks to the advent of the First Book blog you too can feel as if you are traveling through the northern Louisiana great outdoors with Elizabeth, Tabitha, Kevin and I. Keep on reading for the story…

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