My experiences volunteering in San Antonio

I volunteered this weekend at our hurricane refugee shelter at Kelly USA. The best description is organized chaos. I was delivering two way radios to the main office and the Red Cross guy in charge was more concerned with where to put office supplies. I was a bit shocked. He wanted to store uncharged radios in some cabinet and charge them one at a time. After I told him that there were 50 to be charged and distributed, he backed off and let me set them up. He might just be the titular head of the SA Red Cross.

Fortunately, there is a young guy in charge with the Red Cross who seemed like was the one running things on the ground (kinda like the navy where Chiefs really run the show). They are still trying to organize all the volunteers but we just took it upon ourselves to get certain things done. We would just unload what needed to be unloaded, serve food, clean up, and basically keep ourselves busy. I can't say I was really told what to do. We all just filled in where needed.

We have so many people coming in at once that the cafeteria area was just one continuing meal. We would move from cold food (sandwiches, cereal, etc) to hot food, run out, go to cold food and back to hot food. HEB has a portable kitchen and Acadiana Cafe was providing jambalaya. Mr. Gattis delivered lots of pizzas at some point. Ice was very important since there is no large refrigeration area in the building. I heard there is freezer truck but I didn't see it.

Everyone around here is being very generous with food donations but it will be hard to feed thousands every day. The refugees (those who seek refuge) are very nice and grateful but you can feel they are just hanging our waiting for something. It is a very different population than what we have here in San Antonio but there are almost too many volunteers helping. Once the work week starts up, they probably be short volunteers. If you are not working some time off this week or can take a day off, I am sure they will need your help.

I was told by a police officer that there are about 300 police on the sites, handful of DPS (apparently they have a height requirement 'cause they are all real tall) plus military folks in camo. Those in camo did not appear to have a law enforcement role (probably due to posse comitatus).

The building hallways are very crowded. There are many large sleeping rooms with cots a few feet apart. There are medical area, a cafeteria, baby supply area, volunteer training room, a SBC phone room (pretty cool) and law enforcement control/Department of Famly and Protective Services room, a WIC area plus a family entertainment area. Outside, near intake, there is an area for pets. The local ASPCA/Humane Society have kennels for pets that made the trip.

Overall, I think they are doing things on the fly but it seems to be working. Once they know how many people are there, they should start to manage things better. I am really proud of San Antonians. They have really stepped up. I hope we can keep it going.

The San Antonio Express news has a list of charities where you can donate and volunteer. They will need our help for quite some time.