Group Helps Residents Locate Gulf Coast Kin

By Sharon Bernstein and Patrick McGreevy

Sept. 8, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writers

Gisele Perez lives in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Baldwin Hills, 1,900 miles from her Uncle Roy’s home in New Orleans.

Now, she is trying to find him -- long distance.

Her hand shaking, Perez thrust a picture of her late father’s last surviving brother toward a volunteer in a Leimert Park coffee shop. She wrote his name on a registry to be forwarded to relief agencies and gave his address so safety workers in New Orleans could go to his home.

Roy Perez turned 77 a week ago, stubbornly determined to endure the filth and wet in his New Orleans East neighborhood, hopeful that the emergency would soon pass.

“Saturday morning, he told us he was not leaving,” Gisele Perez said, her voice breaking.

Now she doesn’t know if he is alive or dead.

Activist journalist Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who organized the missing persons registry at the Lucy Florence Coffeehouse on 43rd Street in Leimert Park, took the photograph and gently asked if it was Perez’s only copy. He promised to send it to the Red Cross, along with her uncle’s name and address, and her contact information.

Hutchinson’s was one of dozens of volunteer efforts in the region’s African American communities, where many families have roots in the Gulf Coast cities and towns struck by Katrina.

By late afternoon, Hutchinson said, volunteers had collected the names of 100 missing friends and relatives of Los Angeles residents. He said his newly formed Project L.A. Rescue would collect names at the restaurant as long as the crisis persisted.

Throughout the region Wednesday, Southern Californians continued to reach out to victims of Hurricane Katrina, helping track down and evacuate missing friends and relatives; donating food, water and supplies; and organizing bake sales and carwashes to raise funds.

Brandishing a white bucket with the Salvation Army seal on the side, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa collected money in the middle of Main Street near City Hall.

Proving that he can raise money when an election is not at stake, the mayor persuaded the occupants of the first seven cars he stopped to donate to the disaster relief fund.

“This is an opportunity for Angelenos to do their small part to extend our friendship and support for victims of Hurricane Katrina,” Villaraigosa said. “I’m just amazed at the generosity. Kids are giving money. People are driving up, and you can tell they are not people of means and they are giving $50 or $20.”

Among the donors was Don Costa, who was a little surprised to find the mayor standing in traffic asking for a contribution.

“I like the mayor, and I was glad to give to him,” Costa said.

The fund drive next to City Hall was co-sponsored by City Council members Jan Perry and Bernard C. Parks, who were not shy about stopping MTA buses and passing the bucket among riders.

In the end, Perry and Parks said, the fundraising brought in more than $40,000, including at least $3,200 from council members. Villaraigosa, never one to be outdone, announced before leaving that he would match whatever the 13 council members gave to disaster relief.

Separately, city officials were completing an assessment of housing to accommodate 2,000 storm victims, whom the city and county had agreed to take in if asked by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In Orange County, inmates at the Santa Ana City Jail have raised $140 to help Hurricane Katrina victims.

“Some of the inmates were watching the local news and thinking about it,” detention supervisor Donna Estrada said. “One of them felt a need in his heart to help these people and asked officers if he could post a sign requesting contributions.”

To date, Estrada said, about 16 inmates have responded with small donations of personal funds usually spent on such commissary purchases as T-shirts, shorts and hygiene items.

Denny Bellesi and his wife, Leesa, decided that they were going to donate their money in a way they hoped would have a far-reaching impact. The Bellesis, who live in a trailer park in Laguna Beach, said they would donate $50,000 from the proceeds of the sale last year of their home in Aliso Viejo, to churches that promise to help Katrina victims. The donations will be given to 50 churches, one in each state. Already, churches in six states have been named to receive money, said Leesa Bellesi, a television production assistant.

She said she conceived the idea after listening to radio news reports of the hurricane.

“It was all so negative. We’re expecting the government to do everything,” she said.

Bellesi said the money was placed in the Kingdom Assignment Foundation, which was established by her husband, a founding pastor of Coast Hills Community Church.

Elsewhere, the Orange County Rescue Mission launched OperationOC, a campaign to raise $2.6 million to house and feed 100 displaced families for at least a year.

“We want to treat them as legitimate residents of this community,” Jim Palmer, the mission president, said of the families, who have not yet arrived in Southern California. “We want to treat them as our neighbors.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

How to help

The following agencies are among those providing assistance to hurricane victims:

* Adventist Community Services, (800) 381-7171

* American Red Cross, (800) HELP NOW (435-7669) English, (800) 257-7575 Spanish

* America’s Second Harvest, (800) 771-2303

* Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, www.bushclintonkatrinafund.org

* Catholic Charities USA, (800) 919-9338

* Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, (800) 848-5818

* Church of Scientology, (800) 435-7498, www.volunteer ministers.org

* Church World Service, (800) 297-1516

* Convoy of Hope, (417) 823-8998