Project417 Online Newsletter – June 2009

StreetLife – Project417 – June 2009 Vol 6 Issue 8

Our friend Chuck – his portrait at the ROM exhibition June 2009

Dear Friends,
Thanks for reading the online version of the Project417 newsletter. This will give you the latest updates on Project417’s ongoing mission to the homeless. We’d like you to be able to read more, but [...]

Homeless prefer grassroots Out of the Cold program versus city run shelters

It’s spring right? I mean it’s getting warmer right?  Well, I don’t know about where you live, but here in Toronto there has been a dearth of fine spring weather. We’ve had more than our share it seems of unseasonably cold weather, especially cold, blustery winds and the perennial April showers. Most of us, we [...]

Explosion at Toronto apartment – 500 residents evacuated

Explosion in Toronto Apartment Complex
Location: Kingston Rd – Eglinton Avenue
Update from canoe: Hundreds of residents were evacuated after an explosion this morning at an east-end apartment. Many, some wearing only their pj’s and robes, were loaded onto transit buses and taken to a community center.
The explosion, in the basement utility room, knocked out the [...]

The Old Man and the Storm – Hurricane Katrina documentary – Jan 6th on PBS

About a true hero of  Hurricane Katrina: Mr. Herbert Gettridge – airing January 6, 2009 and online. Six months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, producer June Cross came across 82-year-old Herbert Gettridge working alone on his home in the lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood devastated when the levees broke in 2005. [...]

Helping Hurricane Ike Families Recover in San Leon, Texas for Christmas

Project417 hosted a volunteer team from Georgia State University – the Vietnamese Student Association – to visit San Leon, Galveston County, Texas and help a family re-build and renovate their hurricane ravaged home.
More photos to be posted at our Flickr photo sharing pages …
Team leaders Andy and April started the 1,600 mile drive down on [...]

FEMA Relief in Texas Thousands Waiting to Rebuild after Ike

Source NYTimes.com  – A letter To the Editor: from FEMA about housing relief efforts following Hurricane Ike.

Approximately 22,000 people displaced by Hurricane Ike sought and found FEMA shelter assistance. FEMA  …has reimbursed them for expenses they may have incurred. This reimbursement program was scheduled to end last week, but was extended when it became clear [...]

Thunder Bay Trillium Emergency Response Exercise

Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada – Nov.15th to 22nd, 2008. Trillium Emergency Response Exercise. The largest ever emergency and disaster response exercise held in Ontario by Ministry of Community Safety & Corrections. More than 1500 volunteers took part. The exercise scenario, which escalated throughout the week was an extreme ice storm striking Thunder Bay, plunging [...]

Galveston hospital flooded by Hurricane Ike cuts 3800 staff

Galveston, TEXAS –
Still struggling to recover from Hurricane Ike, the battered economy of Galveston Island has suffered another severe blow with the decision by the University of Texas to lay off 3,800 people next week from the medical center, the largest employer on the island. [end of excerpt]
If you’ve been following the Project417 Hurricane [...]

Ontario Stages Largest Ever Emergency Exercise

Andy Heads to Thunder Bay with Emergency Disaster Services Team
Before heading back to Texas with a small Project417 team to help with the Hurricane Ike recovery in San Leon, Galveston County, I have one stop to make – Thunder Bay in Northern Ontario. It’s almost as far north from Toronto as Texas is south. I’ll [...]

Hurricane Ike – Volunteer Trip – Texas Recovery

Volunteers needed – Going to San Leon, Galveston County, Texas

Time and Place: still tentative
Starting: 10 to 14 days duration between Friday, November 14, 2008 and Sunday, Jan 14, 2009
Location: Texas – Houston, Pasadena, Galveston County, Seabrook, Kemah, Bacliff, San Leon
Contact Info: This is a Facebook event, visit the Project417 page on Facebook, or leave a [...]