The City of Houston drew perhaps two-thirds of the people who evacuated from Hurricane Katrina—many of whom left after the levees in New Orleans broke. It's been estimated that 130,000 to 150,000 evacuees are still there.

Goodwill Industries of Houston opened a free distribution center for Katrina evacuees, giving away clothing, food and bedding to more than 1,500 evacuees in the wake of the storm. It provided apartment furnishings to evacuees, as well as clothing and gifts during the holiday season. The agency also placed 15 to 20 evacuees in jobs, some internally and through the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program.

The situation in Houston is one of an overburdened government, says Houston Goodwill CEO Steve Lufburrow. Schools are overcrowded, to the point that the school superintendent doesn't know whether to hire teachers because he doesn't know how many students will remain. Traffic crawls on Houston's already busy interstates.

Six months after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita struck the Gulf Coast within a month of one another, The Goodwill's initial generosity came with a price-the Goodwill lost $400,000 to $600,000 from the combined effects of the two storms, largely due to sharply decreased donations and store sales.

Recently, Lufburrow suggests that donated goods are still not as high as he would like, but with regard to the storms' long-term effects, he thinks things are back to normal. "We were able to continue business as usual," he says.

"For the city, we have more people. But for Goodwill, we're able to put more people to work."

Houston Goodwill Distribution Center Helps Storm Victims

Houston, TX (2005) — At Goodwill Industries of Houston (TX), employees have put in weeks of long days to staff the Goodwill Jensen Drive/Katrina Distribution Center -- a one-stop shop where victims of Hurricane Katrina can pick up an unlimited number of toiletries, clothing, shoes and other basic necessities for free. So far, 1,500 area storm evacuees have benefited from the service, and more than twice that number have donated goods. For Houston CEO Steve Lufburrow, the initiative is as much a labor of love, as it is giving back to the community what the community once gave to his Goodwill. "We’re very pleased to be able to do this," Lufburrow said.

When Goodwill Industries of Houston CEO Steve Lufburrow formulated his agency’s plan to deliver relief for evacuees of Hurricane Katrina, he actually had another storm on his mind.

Tropical Storm Allison hit Houston with a vengeance in June 2001, killing 22 people with floods, and going down as the costliest natural disaster in the city’s history, according to the National Weather Service Forecast Office. At the Goodwill, the storm pushed several feet of water into the agency’s campus and retail stores, causing $1.5 million in facility and equipment damage alone.

That memory jarred Lufburrow into action, when he realized New Orleans residents had nothing to go back to.

"I wanted to help people," Lufburrow said. "People helped us [when Hurricane Allison hit.]"

The Goodwill has gone on to take a three-pronged approach in delivering hurricane relief to the thousands of evacuees that have flooded the Houston area. Two involve the establishment of two separate funds. The first, which enables the public’s donations to go directly to benefit Goodwills affected by Hurricane Katrina, has so far raised about $15,000, said Sherri Lowe, the Goodwill’s Vice President of Community Affairs.

The second is a challenge that Encore Bank President Jim D’Agostino -- a board member at Goodwill Industries of Houston -- presented to his employees: for all the money they donate to benefit the operation of the Houston Goodwill, the bank would match their efforts up to $25,000. So far, that fund has raised approximately $40,000 to go toward supporting the agency as it delivers other relief efforts, Lowe said.

But the Goodwill’s largest effort to help storm evacuees is the establishment of its Goodwill Jensen Drive/Katrina Distribution Center located at the Goodwill’s main campus. Started September 2, the center has given unlimited clothing, shoes, toiletries, and other necessities to any storm evacuees that walk through the door.

Lowe said that more than 1,500 storm evacuees have personally visited or received clothing from the center, some of which came from the overflow donations of the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross and the United Way.

"We have the opportunity to be responsive to every single person, every single agency," Lowe said.

The distribution center was not in the Goodwill’s original relief plans in the day or two following Hurricane Katrina’s arrival on the Gulf Coast. At first, the Goodwill had hoped to gather 20,000 pounds of clothing and deliver it to storm evacuees at the Houston Astrodome. But, after the Goodwill’s offers for help went unanswered by local agencies coordinating that facility’s storm relief efforts, the Goodwill decided to take its current tack and began sending out word.

On September 13 -- 12 days after the center first opened -- it’s apparent that donors heard or acted on their own. Approximately 15,000 square feet of the Goodwill’s enormous processing center is dedicated to storing goods for victims of Hurricane Katrina, said the Goodwill‘s Production Manager Jim Thompson. Boxes are stacked upon one another, overbrimming with clothes. Black garbage bags filled with goods are piled in one area of the processing center. And palettes and crates of donated goods nearly touch the ceiling in other areas of the facility.

Pat Wike, the Goodwill’s Manager of the Main Clearance Center -- which is housing the Goodwill Jensen Drive/Katrina Distribution Center -- said truckloads of donations are coming from as far away as New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. On September, 47 boxes arrived at the distribution center from United Parcel Service alone, she said.

Carla Foster, a Goodwill Team Member in the Clearance Center, works for Wike and even started coming in to volunteer at the facility on her days off.

"It’s good to help people," Foster said. "It might be me one day."

On September 13, George Akirtava was that person. The 22-year-old New Orleans resident left the Republic of Georgia six years ago and found himself evacuating to Houston when Hurricane Katrina hit.

Fresh from a job fair, Akirtava said he hoped to find computer-related work. He was employed as an information technology specialist at Tulane University, and wasn’t sure if he’d be called back to work there.

"This is a great service," Akirtava said, referring to the Goodwill Jensen Drive/Katrina Distribution Center. "It definitely helps people get on their feet and get going. Once they have these things….then they can get jobs."

By 4:30 p.m., Byron Kannady, a Goodwill Supervisor in the processing center, took a well-deserved break on a store shelf. He had worked 21 days straight, but doesn’t mind because he knows he’s helped people.

The one drawback about the facility, he said, is that more people haven’t shown up.

"Hopefully, we’ll open up tomorrow in the morning and see 500 people standing out there," Kannady said.

Financial donations from the public and from Goodwills around the world helped the Goodwills affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year.

Katrina was a very difficult ordeal for my family and me; but it is the generosity and caring of people like you that have made it bearable.
- Sincerely, Joan (Kenner, LA)

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Hurricane Katrina Coverage - Houston, TX

Pat Wike, Manager of Goodwill Industries of Houston's Main Clearance Center.
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Hurricane Katrina Coverage (Slides) - Houston, TX

Pat Wike, Manager of Goodwill Industries of Houston's Main Clearance Center, reaches into a box of soap for a storm evacuee shopping
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