Today many of us are thinking and praying about - and taking action to assist - those who were affected by Hurricane Katrina.

My friend Andy Carvin of the Digital Divide Network has created a Katrina Aftermath web site to enable members of the community to post text, images, podcasts, and mobcasts about the people and places affected by Katrina. 

I hope that nonprofits that are involved in disaster relief will contribute to this new project. This could be a good opportunity for an agency to experiment with using new media to get the word out about their relief work without having to go to the trouble of setting up their own web sites for this purpose.

Andy has kindly provided some very simple instructions:
To post a blog entry:
Send an email to katrina2005.comments @ blogger.com. The title of your email will be the title of the blog entry, and the email body will be the blog entry body. If you don't want your contact information, you should remove your signature file. Attachments will not be posted.

To record a podcast:
Dial 1-415-856-0205
Enter login 515-515-5555
PIN code 2005, then the # key
Record your message
Press the # key to save, then the 1 key to post

To post a photo:
The website is collecting photos from Flickr.com that are tagged with the word "hurricanekatrina." Simply log on to Flickr (or create an account), upload photos, and use this tag. Photos appear in the right column of the blog's homepage.


The United States Federal Emergency Management Agency has a list on its web site of organizations that you can contact if you'd like to help those affected by Hurricane Katrina.   Another good resource is the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance, which has published some very practical tips about charitable giving for disaster relief.