Baton Rouge Disaster Relief

Thanks for helping "The Cajun Cross" we have been shipping out or Caravan of Chefs since two days after the flood in Baton Rouge.

I'm Mike Couste from New Orleans.
I work with AbitaFresh.com. (This seems unnatural to mention but GoFundMe asked me to include that info. This isn't about me. This is about the victims)

GoFundMe has asked to tell you my relation to the victims. They're friends and family and family of friends. They're other people just like me. Hard working folks that have had some bad luck. A few of our members have parent's homes that are totally gone. A grand mother and mother were just finally brought to one of our members homes after a stint in a hospital and 2 different shelters. 

We are low on funds but high on energy. We've had members of our "Cajun Cross" in the damaged areas every day since the flood (except today) 

We have a few more restaurants that are making huge contributions. Our team went from dangerous boat rides saving lives, to cooking for a few people, to a 20 vehicahl caravan of  volunteer chefs, servers and farmers to a 20 Uhaul fleet of donations. 

We are far from done. We aim to keep feeding people while we help gut their homes. 

With this money, we will be able to buy more raw ingredient and keep cooking. 
Buying raw ingredients and using our culinary skills leads us to being able to stretch a penny by cooking in bulk!

Togo boxes and cutlery is a bigger cost than you'd expect!

The next few weeks will be harder than the last.  And while helping with gutting homes we will need cleaning supplies. This all adds up fast. The 1500 I originally suggested will not get us too far but it will help a great deal. 

We call ourselves the Cajun Cross because we aren't the Red Cross and we don't have a huge facility or people in offices. We have cooks, bartenders, construction workers, a stage manager, war veterans...we're just a group of like minded people doing what we can to help pay forward what people did for us in Katrina. 

Side note:
I can't even begin to wrap my mind around what's going on in the huge shelters. If anyone has access to school busses, helping get some of those folks out of the city and onto life in less cramped conditions I'm sure we could have more shelters in surrounding areas. 

But we aren't politicians or wealthy. We are just driven folk trying to help where we can!

UPDATE:
The spirit of the victims has been incredible. Our arrivals are met with tears of joy. Their thanks is as heavy as the mountain of pulled pork The Joint donated. 

Help us keep helping. 

Thanks, ya'll