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Imagine losing all of your earthly possessions and coming home to complete destruction or nothing left but your foundation. When hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana there was a place, St. Bernard Parish that had 27,000 homes that were ALL destroyed. The people of St. Bernard are unique in that they all lost and slowly they are returning home to rebuild together.

In February of 2007 my family and 20 others from San Clemente, California went to Louisiana and we built a playground at Andrew Jackson school, (an old high school) which housed 2,200 kids. In July we were able to return with 21 new people to build a second playground at the first elementary school to open, J.F. Gauthier. This past August 35 of us built our third playground at Smith Elementary and we painted a mural at Gauthier. Our lives have been so affected by these trips. There is so much devastation that has left Louisiana so destroyed that it is heart wrenching. When we left this August we knew we'd like to help again and it is our hope that we'll be back to build one more playground at Joseph Davies Elementary.

Our plan is to raise $70,000 for a fourth playground to be built this Summer 2009. This playground will be built in St. Bernard Parish, and we will be traveling August 15-22. Currently we are fundraising and we have about $60,000 in the bank. We are working with a nonprofit 501(c) 3 organization called Kids Around the World. Their goal is to build hope by building playgrounds. All donations are tax deductible and checks can be sent to Kids directly or you can donate online at www.kidsaroundtheworld.com and type for the Kids of Katrina in the box provided. Thank you for your time and I know that together we can bring more hope to Louisiana.


For the kids of Katrina,
The Perez Family (Mark, Debbie, Billy, Mary, Delaney, and Teddy)