A consortium of Hurricane Katrina relief groups say they are approaching the $25 million mark in money, muscle, and material donated to about 1,000 families around New Orleans.
Even so, they estimate the region’s recovery is only at the halfway point, at best.
An accurate calculation of the total private relief figure is largely unknowable, some relief managers say.
But $25 million is the value of volunteer aid, materials, and donations the consortium believes it has supplied to about 1,000 families, said Tom Costanza, board chair of the consortium called the Greater New Orleans Disaster Recovery Partnership.
The $25 million is considered a small fraction of the total outpouring of private aid that flowed, and still flows, into the region since Katrina roared ashore in August 2005. It does not include tens of millions of dollars worth of aid the consortium’s 80 or more member agencies have distributed solely out of their own relief operations since 2005. (RNS)
