Cape Region offers aid to Louisiana flood victims

In a few weeks, a tractor-trailer will make the 1,200-mile trek from Sussex County to southern Louisiana to deliver donations to displaced flood victims.

Milton resident Amy Kratz, who is organizing the donation drive, has friends living in Louisiana and the Baton Rouge area, where torrential downpours last month displaced thousands of families and left at least 13 people dead, according to the Associated Press. It was the thought of everyday people struggling to find adequate shelter, food and clothing that prompted Kratz to jump out of bed one morning and begin organizing a donation drive for families she's never met.

“I knew people that suffered through Katrina, and I know some of those same people are now in Baton Rouge suffering those same kind of effects,” she said. “Their whole houses are ruined. I just want these people to get help.”

Kratz started by reaching out to friends – starting with Salisbury resident and truck driver Tommaine Palmer, who has volunteered the services of East Coast Large Cars to deliver the items. Palmer and several truck drivers from across the East Coast formed their nonprofit organization late last year after offering their services to deliver bottled water to Flint, Mich.

“We do fundraisers, but most of the time it's out of our own pockets,” Palmer said. “We do it from the heart.”

Kratz's friend, Holly Dickman of Gonzales, La., just outside of Baton Rouge, was touched by Kratz's idea. She tried to explain what her friends and neighbors are facing in the aftermath of the floods.

Dickman was lucky, she said; her house was spared of the damage from back-flooding, but many of her neighbors ended up with more than 2 feet of water in their homes.

“I don't know what the good Lord has in store for me, but our house was spared,” she said. “But it was all around me. There's just piles and piles and piles of debris. They call it debris, but that's people's lives.”

Dickman said she's taken in one family that had 4 feet of water flood their family home, which for 60 years had never gotten a drop of water. Until this time.

“It's a very stressful situation,” Dickman said. “Right now people need a bar of soap or a towel, but they don't have any place to store this stuff. A T-shirt and a clean pair of socks goes a long way for people that are displaced.”

That's exactly what Kratz is hoping to do: Collect as many items as possible that might help families get through while they're working to get back into their homes. East Coast Large Cars will pick up the items in the first week of October and deliver them to The Church in St. Amant, La.

“We have less than a month to do this,” she said. “Every little bit helps.”

Donation items include: Blankets, baby items (diapers, clothes, wipes), personal hygiene items (feminine products, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes, razors, shaving cream), nonperishable food items, bottled water, clothes of all sizes, socks, underwear, canned goods, first aid kits, flashlights, batteries, pet food, bug spray, masks, cleaning supplies, trash bags, box-cutter knives, gloves, brooms, hammers, safety glasses, extension cords and mops. Items can be dropped off at Millman's Appliances on Route 9.

For more information or to donate, contact Kratz at amydrives@gmail.com or call 302-542-4991 after 6 p.m.