Wow!

There is no way for me to fully understand the scope of Hurricane Katrina. But here at home, there are thousands of people who fled the area hit by the storm. Some are living in hotels, thousands in the convention center and many more scattered all over town in private homes with friends and family or new acquaintances.

Yesterday, the kids and The Boss pulled out several bags of toys and books to donate, along with some clothes. While they were working on this, my wife kept explaining to our 3 year old that he was picking out some toys for kids that did not have any right now. It almost made me cry when she told me later that the first thing he wanted to give were his two very favorite toys. I was amazed at how much he could care about kids he never met.

So this morning we all went to the centralized donation drop off site. I don't know what I expected, but it was not what I saw. Dozens of my former co-workers were manning the site, a 5 story parking garage that was filling up quickly with donations.

Sometimes it was easy to think that working for "The City" meant you were just part of a huge anonymous workforce. Today, it was awesome to be able to point out several of my work friends to the kids and show them what nice people they all are. And how much they are all pitching in to help people they will never know, too.