Letters of Love and Support to Hurricane Survivors

[Guest guest]

I have made the commitment that Circle of Love will send letters of

encouragement and support to hurricane survivors. Now I am seeking

new volunteers to write these letters. I will ask people outside

Amma's organization to join us as well.

 

What's happening right now is that Amma satsang members in areas

where displaced people have been sent in sizable numbers are

identifying shelters to which letters can be sent. That

information should be available in 2-3 days. I'm making a database

of all interested devotees and other letter writing volunteers so

that I can send out Hurricane Katrina Letters guidelines. The

letter writing guidelines that we use for Circle of Love will be

changed slightly to fit this situation.

 

I am also prayerfully asking Amma and others how to handle return

address of your letters. Some of the people may want to stay in

touch with us as their emotional life raft. There are several

possibilities. One is to use Waves of Compassion website which is

being redesigned to serve Hurricane Katrina relief. Another is to

use the Circle of Love post office box.

 

We also do not know and probably cannot/should not gather names of

people who are in the shelters. Perhaps we should not have their

names until they wish to send them. Most likely we will write on

the envelope the family role and age range for adults, such

as "Mother 25 to 30" or "Grandfather, age 60 to 65" and the gender

and age for children such as "Girl, age 10" and the letter can go to

a matching person.

 

If you are an adult and would like to write supportive, encouraging

letters, please send me at aikya your name, spiritual name

if you have one, city and state of residents. Please make the

subject of your email "Katrina Letter Writer." I will send you

information later this week about the details.

 

If you are a parent of a child from 6 to 17 who would like to write

to a child who had been displaced by the hurricane, please send your

name and the child or children's names and ages with your city and

state to Aikya. Make the subject line "Youth to Youth

Letter Writer." For the kids we may have suggested themes or

activities to make it more fun for both sides.

 

I will add you and your child to the database of letter writers so I

can contact you. To get ready you can look for or make a card or

pretty stationery that you would like to use to send some color with

your loving message. After I send out more specifics, it's okay to

say you don't want to participate if there is anything about what we

are doing which makes you feel uncomfortable.

 

In Amma's love,

Aikya