NRPA members offer grassroots assistance

Parks & Recreation, Nov, 2005

Almost one month after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, Hurricane Rita made landfall on the Gulf Coast region in late September. Clean-up efforts will be ongoing for the next year, as survivors try to lift themselves out of the wreckage of these two natural disasters.

The destructive path of both hurricanes seems almost identical--both swept through the southern tip of Florida before gaining in strength over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Both storms rose to Category 5 status and then lost momentum before hitting the Gulf Coast. While Katrina flooded regions in Louisiana and flattened homes along the coast of Mississippi, Rita did not impose the same devastation, although the storm did leave an estimated 2 million people without electricity and caused severe damage in parts of Louisiana and Texas.

NRPA has joined hundreds of other agencies nationwide to help victims of both storms. Even before the organization formed the Gulf Coast Park and Recreation Relief Fund, hundreds of NRPA members were volunteering and sending donations on the grassroots level.

For example, by the time Katrina evacuees relocated to Baton Rouge, La., the East Baton Rouge Recreation and Park Commission (BREC) was ready with five truckloads of games and leisure diversions for people to take their minds off of their situation.

"If you're used to having a recreation program or center that you go to on a daily basis, and then you get cooped up ... in a shelter with a thousand or two thousand people, you become stir crazy there--recreation is a part of life," says Bert Neal, BREC recreation director.

BREC also received help from other NRPA members who donated extra supplies to meet the needs of the more than 200,000 evacuees. From as far north as Bismarck, N.D, which sent 1,250 T-shirts; to as far west as Sacramento, Calif., which sent a box of sweatshirts--members were willing to contribute as much as they could toward the recovery effort.

Throughout October, supplies were delivered to Baton Rouge from agencies such as the Roswell Recreation and Parks Department in Georgia, which estimated at least 30 large-sized boxes of recreation equipment were delivered.

And more help is on its way. The University of Mississippi has decided to donate 100 percent of its proceeds from its annual haunted trail fundraiser, which usually raises between $3,000 and $4,000 for the two-day event. Kim Beason, associate professor of the Park and Recreation Management Department at the university, suggests other agencies hold similar fundraisers and donate their proceeds to NRPA's Gulf Coast Relief Fund.

"Golf tournaments, poker tournaments, softball tournaments, bowling events, etc., could all be conducted in the name of hurricane relief efforts across the country," Beason says.

Raising funds may not bring immediate relief, but the money will provide long-term support to agencies in need. City Park in New Orleans, which is often described as the Central Park of the South, has received pledges from the Central Park Conservancy, the City Park Alliance and the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta. "We are confident that the park is going to remain the park and is going to remain a central role in the community," says John Hopper, City Park's director of development.

George DeCoux, director of Gulfport's Department of Leisure Services, has received pledges from the Mississippi Recreation and Parks Association, which held a fundraising event at its state conference in October; the city of Pittsfield, Mass., will hopefully raise funds of $30,000 for DeCoux's soccer program; and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has given the department $75,000 to clean about four of its flooded facilities.

Although FEMA has played a part in helping some of the park and recreation agencies in their relief efforts, City Park CEO Bob Becker does not think it is enough. "We expect, we hope, we think that through FEMA's programs that we get funding for the damage," Becker says, adding that the estimated damage to his 1,300-acre park is $42 million. "But, you can't pay anybody on hope.

"When you have an event of this magnitude and this calamity, basically, the federal government has to step in and help in a huge way," he says. "Either they are going to do that and the park is going to recover, or they are not going to do that and the park will never recover from this."

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