National Journal columnist Daniel Glover has turned his efforts to helping the victims of Hurrican Katrina. In his Beltway Blogroll column yesterday, Glover wrote:
Since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, I have wanted to do something to help the victims of the storm but something more personal than just donating to charity. After several days of contemplation, it hit me: I write, therefore I am. So write I will.
With the help of Devin Hedge, a friend of mine and Webmaster extraordinaire, I have launched a site called Hurricane Job Hunter as a forum for volunteering my writing and editing services. I also have recruited some of my journalistic colleagues to help. The site will enable people left jobless by the hurricane to contact us so we can write cover letters, resumes or other materials they need as they try to recover from the storm.
That is the easy part. The hard part is finding the people who need the help, especially when we are nowhere near the hurricane’s path or the key evacuee areas, and when many of the storm’s victims are homeless, computer-less or never had computers or Internet access before the hurricane hit.
But as the managing editor of National Journal’s Technology Daily and the author of Beltway Blogroll, I believe in the power of the Web to connect people and make things happen. After the hurricane hit, I watched with amazement as hundreds of bloggers marshaled their resources to raise more than $1 million in just a few days. The same kind of energy was apparent after the tsunami of last December.
This post is my attempt to start the same kind of charitable blog swarm. I am not asking for your money; I am asking for your help. If you have connections to people left jobless by Hurricane Katrina, either direct or indirect, please tell them about Hurricane Job Hunter. If they do not have computer access, act as their mediators and contact us through the site so we can try to open employment doors to them.
Please check in on Glover’s project if you might be able to help.
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