Hurricane survivor registry

This morning my kids and the kids of a few other families established a lemonade stand (including cookies made by moms) on a busy street corner. All the proceed from the morning went to the American Friends Service Committee effort to help Katrina survivors. I don't know how much the lemonade stand made today, but by the time we left, there were plenty of large bills in the payment can. The kids are all under 5 years old and none of them really understood where the money was going. I don't know about the other kids, but my 4 year old is really curious about all the kids that suddenly don't have homes. It's been a great opportunity to help him learn about compassion in action and service to others.

It was a happy coincidence that when I got home I had an email from Tom over at the Management Skills blog. He's helped to establish an online registry for Hurricane Katrina survivors. Folks can let others know they're okay, find out if someone they know is okay, or tell people that someone you know is okay. It's a great idea--will you pass along the website too? One more time, that web address is http://katrina.im-ok.org.

Here's the official announcement:

Survivors can register "I'm OK" Via Nationwide Web Registry www.im-ok.org

 As family and friends continue to search for people displaced by Hurricane
Katrina, a new, nationwide web registry makes it possible to search for a
specific person, instead of combing message boards organized city-by-city.

Survivors can register "I'm OK" or have someone
else register for them that "I'm OK."  Aid stations and relief
centers can use this registry to assist people in making their whereabouts
visible to their family and friends. 

The search side of the site allows for a specific pinpoint
search for a person by household rather than generic searches by city.
All the search requires is the person's telephone number from before the disaster.
Family and friends searching for the same person can communicate with each
other through the message board tied to that phone number.

The link is www.im-ok.org

The site is sponsored by O. R. Colan Associates (ORC) and
developed by ComputerNex Corporation, both of Fort Lauderdale.  Beneath the simple
appearance of the site there is a heavy duty search engine and the band width
capacity to support thousands of simultaneous queries.