Road Trip #2

Road Trip #2 for St. Bernard Recovery Corp. is in the books. This one was significantly shorter than the first, which is good considering I was solo for this one. I went to Jacksonville for some family time, but while there I rented a UHaul and loaded up all the stuff my dad has been collecting the past two months. My mom also gave me quite a few things from her closets as well as two really nice chairs. This was a much smaller load than the Northeast run, which had a lot of furniture, but it was still well worth the time and expense. It’s going to add a lot to our November 10 distribution. By the way, we’re going to need the additional goods.

Around 1 p.m. today, on I-10 in Alabama, my phone rang with New Orleans area number I didn’t recognize. It was a woman in St. Bernard Parish, telling me she saw my ad in the St. Bernard News about the beds and furniture we had to give away. “What ad?”, I thought. We didn’t run an ad. It turns out the St. Bernard News decided to take the press release Erin and I sent them about the bed we delivered to a couple here in the Parish a few weeks back (we did this in the hopes that a picture and caption would run and we’d have a news clipping to show potential donors that we’re serious about what we’re doing and getting things done) and ran it as a full-fledged news article, on the front page! And, they printed my cell phone number at the end, saying to call me for more info.

I did get a kick out of this, and a big smile. All I could think was that this had to happen for a reason. We’ll get some pub, we’ll raise awareness about SBRC, and I’ll probably meet a few more terrific people and families to help out. Of course, my phone rang off the hook the rest of the day. I have to be careful. The last thing I want to do is get people’s hopes up and let people down. But back to that theme of this happening for a reason, I think this is going to fire me up even more when it comes to fundraising.