New Orleans We have not talked about it much recently, but 5 days of every week we have continued to send out 3 or 4 gutting crews a day to clean-out houses for people in New Orleans on the ACORN list who want to come home. What the NCAA basketball championships see as “March Madness,” we see as an answer to our call, as literally hundreds of students have jumped into the mess of New Orleans to help ACORN’s gutting program in recent weeks during their spring break. Darryl Durham, the ACORN Clean-out Director, told me this morning at 8:00 AM, as hundreds of the volunteers milled about and got in line for gutting supplies, that we have had 100-150 volunteers per day for the last two weeks and expect to have the same for another two weeks.

Today, there was a huge crew from the University of Maryland. There was also a big delegation from Tufts University in Boston. Another bunch of volunteers all had on sweatshirts saying “Berlin” on the outside, meaning that they were down from the winters of New Hampshire to help.

It counts and it makes a difference.

Thanks to all of you from ACORN and from every family that you just helped get another mile closer to home!