Locals Put Work on Hold, Head South to Lend Hand in Relief

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Given the choice of donating time or money, Minh Tran decided to give his time. A civil engineer with Harris & Associates, Tran dropped everything and headed south to help evacuees from Hurricane Katrina.


“I got an e-mail asking for volunteers with Vietnamese translations skills, because they were severely understaffed in Houston,” he said.


Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have sizable Vietnamese populations, and the devastated eastern Orleans Parish is home to that city’s Little Vietnam. Thousands of refugees went to Houston.


Tran is among the dozens of L.A.-area professionals who flew or drove into the hurricane devastation. “I saw the images on TV and what was really upsetting to me was that these people are out there and needing help,” he said.


Like many others, he tried to contact the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross. After waiting a few days for a response, Tran decided to head down there alone.


He wasn’t the only one. Glen Friedman, a media/technology consultant, also raced down to the Gulf to help out. He flew to Austin, Texas, and then drove to Slidell, La. in a 50-foot trailer full of supplies. He doesn’t think he’ll make it back to work until this week.


“I had to have a patient wife and some very patient clients,” said Friedman, president of L.A.-based Ideas & Solutions Inc., a media/technology consulting company. Friedman said he felt the need to do something. He used to live in northern Louisiana. “The reality is, living here in L.A. we could be in the same situation,” he said.


The American Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles has sent 51 L.A. professionals to its staging area in Houston. They have been deployed to impacted areas along the Gulf Coast, according to spokesman H.T. Linke. Though most had medical skills, Linke said all kinds of people are calling to help.


“At one point, we were taking a couple hundred calls a day from people who wanted to volunteer,” he said. “Some were saying ‘I can go there tomorrow,’ others were saying ‘I can’t go tomorrow, but I can go week after next.’ Frankly, we’re in this for the long haul, so I expect we’ll be sending people for weeks to come.”


Some volunteers mobilized themselves, putting their skills to work where they’ll be most effective. Tran is going back to Houston in two weeks to continue volunteer work with the displaced Vietnamese community. Friedman used his organizational skills to untangle the chaos of loading trucks. “We ran out of boxes, I had to get boxes donated. We ran out of money, I raised $5,000 in 12 hours,” he said.


Employees at Tomzilla Inc., an L.A.-based lighting and grip company, organized six semi-trucks of supplies. The company is usually taking apart and putting together movie and television productions, so a quick mobilization was all in a day’s work. Founder Tom Browne, a New Orleans native, was determined to help out he still had family there. Though recently retired and only half-owner of the company, Browne offered to sell the rest of his stake. “I called my business partner and said, ‘Buy my shares now I just want the money to help out,'” he said. The company donated three of its trucks to help carry the goods.


Cesar Toledo drove one of them to Louisiana last week. A member of the Teamster’s, local 399, Toledo was working on a TV production in L.A. “The town is really busy right now,” Toledo said from a highway in New Mexico. “Everyone’s out working, but my cousin and I decided to take this as a higher calling.”


They’ve done this before. During the 1993 Malibu fires they loaded up their truck with cheeseburgers and coffee and drove in to meet stranded firefighters. “We’re used to acting at a moment’s notice,” he said, “so if it’s flooded, we’ll take care of it.”

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