Embrace Mississippi’s Children is a coalition of Mississippi and national organizations collecting materials and monetary gifts for shelters and to help early care and education programs in Mississippi rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

“We Cried When We Saw the Boxes”

Nov. 7, 2005 | Donna “Dee” Dowdy and her three daughters cried when the books, puzzles, and toys for their south Mississippi child care center arrived.

They lost most of their equipment and a third of the building when Hurricane Katrina struck their family business, the Jack and Jill of Vancleave in Vancleave (pop. 4,910).

Volunteers with Embrace Mississippi’s Children, a drive to restore and rebuild early care and education programs in the Katrina region, recently delivered 11 boxes of materials to Dowdy.

“We cried when we saw the boxes. It was just wonderful. They replaced everything we lost, except the building,” Dowdy said.

Dowdy, whose family also operates a center in Moss Point, Miss., has had up to 22 relatives and friends, homeless after the hurricane destroyed their houses, living with her. She said the stresses of life after Katrina has been difficult for her and her staff, and particularly for the parents they serve, many of them schoolteachers or employees in refineries and industrial plants on the coast.

The young children she sees are suffering the most.

“Many of them are living in temporary housing. They need extra love or attention, and we try to give that to them, but oh, my, our staff is stressed, too,” Dowdy said.

Dowdy’s Vancleave enrollment is still not at pre-Katrina level, as some parents are unable to return to work until they find new housing. With the infant-toddler section of her building destroyed, she has set up temporary spaces for that group in a skating rink adjacent to her building, where she and her family previously operated an after-school program for school-age children. Thus, the small community has lost a popular after-school program, too.

Embrace Mississippi’s Children still needs financial gifts and contributions of materials and supplies to help all of the state’s affected providers resume full operation.


 

Embrace Mississippi’s Children
Contact: Lynn Darling (662) 690-8100
© 2005 First United Methodist Church-Tupelo

Updated 10/02/2005