News-Record.com

As you might remember, reporter Amy Dominello went to Meridian, Miss., last month to help out with the hurricane relief efforts and to write about what she saw. Now, some of the local volunteers she went with have headed back to the Gulf Coast. The relief workers from the N.C. Baptist Men are in Lafayette, La., for a week to provide meals. Here's a dispatch that Paul Hooker of Madison who organized the group of Piedmont Triad volunteers sent to Amy: (It's been edited a tiny bit for clarity.)

Things are going fairly well here in Lafayette. We are at the East Bayou Baptist Church. We have approximately 40 people here at our site and are doing 6,000-7,000 meals per day. As usual, we almost ran out of food and right at the last moment food showed up. We also have four people from our group that are in Metairie, close to New Orleans feeding approximately 150 recovery workers. (We didn't find out they were needed in that area until the night before we left, but we are flexible!)

At lunch today, an Asian woman that I could barely understand visited. She has come every day to get meals. Her husband is stuck on a shrimp boat, somewhere and can't get home. She had been trying to get a tree off her house and has no help. We have experienced people in our group, but no equipment. One of the pastors is working on some help and equipment, and our guys will go help make it happen.

Many people are in this area, displaced from other areas. Yesterday the Red Cross found a hotel full of displaced people, struggling to get food. We had an extra 250 meals and they ate it all. So starting today, we are doing a regular delivery over there.

Gotta run, just wanted to touch base.