Hurricane Relief

Watching the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, millions of people reached for their wallets and credit cards to send donations to the Red Cross and other organizations. But some people like John and Karen Lovrovich of Moses Lake, Washington, decided to do more.
The Lovrovichs started a campaign to encourage people to donate used RVs to hurricane victims.

The idea was simple. John Lovrovich, a structural engineer, had an old motorhome that he and his wife thought could provide shelter for a homeless family, and they surmised that others might also be willing to part with used RVs. So they created a Web site, www.jointheconvoy.com, and invited others to donate RVs to people in the hurricane-devastated area.

Lindsey Winthrop, a retired school bus driver who lives in Potlach, Idaho, learned about the effort and donated her 29-foot Terry travel trailer. A couple in Moses Lake contributed an old motorhome. Others promised to help.

People who couldn’t donate RVs contributed relief supplies and money for gas. Lindsey Winthrop’s daughter and son-in-law, who own a lighting store in Lewiston, Idaho, enlisted donations from the business community. Clothing, toys, dishes, a tent, sleeping bags and all sorts of supplies were donated. Someone even contributed a generator big enough to power four motorhomes.

Need Questioned
Near the end of September, there were three RVs ready to roll toward the hurricane area. But the problem was exactly where to take them. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) didn’t return calls. The Red Cross couldn’t help. In fact, someone at the Red Cross advised Karen Lovrovich to drop the effort because FEMA was buying tens of thousands of new trailers for hurricane victims and no one would want an old RV. But she persisted.

Finally, after many calls, Karen found a church in Houston that was sheltering hurricane victims and could use RVs. Meanwhile, Lindsey made a connection with an Elks Lodge in Shreveport, Louisiana, that was willing to link up RVs with needy families.

So Lindsey loaded her pickup truck and travel trailer with donated goods and set out for Louisiana in company with her daughter, Lonna Bishop. Karen Lovrovich enlisted her sister and brother-in-law to drive one donated motorhome to Louisiana, and she and her husband planned to drive the other. Unfortunately, an accident that badly injured a nephew forced the Lovroviches to stay behind and turn the driving over to a volunteer. Then the engine of their motorhome conked out in Missoula, Montana. At last report, the motorhome, a 34-foot Pace Arrow, was waiting for a new engine.

Destination Reached
One motorhome and a trailer arrived safely at the Elks Lodge in Shreveport in northwest Louisiana at the end of September. Greg Taylor, the lodge secretary, and other lodge members then drove the motorhome to an Elks Lodge in Slidell, near New Orleans. Slidell was devastated by the hurricane, and the Elks had turned their lodge hall into an emergency shelter.

Taylor said the trailer and motorhome are now parked at the Slidell Elks Lodge, providing much-needed temporary housing for two families. A reunited family of five got the trailer. The family’s house was destroyed, and the husband had stayed in Slidell after the hurricane while his wife and three teen-age children moved into a shelter in Mississippi. The man was so overjoyed at the opportunity to get a trailer and reunite his family that he cried. “It was heartbreaking,” said Taylor.

When the RVs arrived in Slidell on Oct. 3—five weeks after the hurricane—conditions were still very bad. Some electricity was back on, but drinking water was still unavailable, and people eagerly took the bottles of water that Taylor and his friends had trucked in with the motorhome and trailer.

FEMA has announced a massive effort to provide housing for hurricane victims. According to news reports, FEMA has purchased or ordered 125,000 travel trailers and thousands more manufactured homes. Most will be moved onto large sites, such as a 65-acre cow pasture outside Baton Rouge, where a team of 200 engineers, plumbers, laborers and others has worked to create a “City of Hope” consisting of 600 white travel trailers, a large kitchen hall, laundries, basketball courts and picnic tables.

But putting together that sort of relief effort takes time. And while FEMA and the Red Cross have provided temporary shelters in places away from the hurricane area, that doesn’t help people who want to return to their homes and rebuild. In New Orleans and other devastated areas, Taylor said, “We’ve still got people sleeping in their cars.”

So the arrival of the used motorhome and trailer in Slidell was more than welcome. “It was a godsend,” said Taylor.

RVs Sought
At this magazine’s press time in October, the effort to get used RVs to hurricane victims was continuing. Two retired couples in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, were trying to line up RVs. The motorhome whose engine died in Missoula might still get to the hurricane area. The church in Houston that offered to take RVs was still looking for help. The Elks said they could place more RVs in Louisiana. Anyone who wants to donate an RV can contact the Shreveport Elks at (318) 868-5301.

As of Oct. 3—the day the donated motorhome and trailer arrived in Slidell—the Red Cross reported that $1.26 billion had been spent on hurricane relief efforts, including $110 million specifically for food and shelter and $91 million for hotel and lodging expenses. Against that kind of massive undertaking, the donation of an old motorhome and trailer seem to be small potatoes. But for the two families that moved into those RVs, and especially for the family of five that was reunited, it wasn’t a small thing at all.

Lindsey Winthrop, who traveled 4,700 miles from Idaho to Louisiana and back to deliver her trailer, said, “The units we took down there are a drop in the bucket. But if every community could take one unit…There is plenty of need.”

Write to Mike Ward, editor at RV Life Magazine, 18717 76th Avenue West, Suite B, Lynnwood, WA 98037 or e-mail editor@rvlife.com. Find First Glance on-line at rvlife.com