Winona Daily News

I love this time of year. Dozens of catalogs clog the mailbox, touting back-to-school essentials for the entire family. The themes are all the same: New schools, new friends, and new beginnings. I fall for it every year, regardless of whether anyone in my house is going to school. The smell of No. 2 pencils and Elmer’s glue flood my nostrils as I walk the school supply aisles at the grocery store. Patiently, new socks and sneakers wait for that first day of school. Imagine my frustration when, catalogs and credit card in hand, the customer service representative told me most of the items on my “must-have” list were back-ordered. It was almost enough to make me cry.

Almost.

Then I turned on the television. This, in and of itself, is not an unusual occurrence; I watch a lot of television. Admittedly, it is usually of the cartoon variety, but a lot of television nevertheless. A year ago, I watched a lot of a different kind of television. Like most of the country, I was hypnotized by the images on every station, documenting the devastation that was New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Our family hurried to assemble the care packages requested by our church and school to help the victims in the immediate aftermath. It made us feel like we were helping, albeit in a very small way, and truthfully, it made us feel a little less guilty about our own material possessions — possessions safe from water and mold and looting. Now, one year later, as I am fretting over sold-out play shirts and tights, there continue to be thousands of children left homeless and displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Even if they had the means to fill their backpacks, many still do not even have a school to attend. There are few, if any, after-school programs. There is little available daycare. There is minimal health care. And even as I click back to the singing dinosaur, I know the news reports will be the same on all the channels.

In their recently published “One-Year Review of Key Indicators of Recovery in Post-Storm New Orleans,” The Brookings Institution asserts that less than one-third of the area’s public schools will be open this fall and just 23 percent of childcare centers are open. I would bet a whole 64-count box of new crayons that none of the families affected by Katrina’s fury is worrying over the perfect back-to-school outfit.

Concerned for the welfare of so many of Katrina’s youngest survivors, Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, noted in her column on the Fund’s Web site that help and hope is on the way. The CDF Freedom Schools, for example, are providing positive opportunities for children throughout New Orleans. Of course this program doesn’t replace real brick-and-mortar schools, nor does it hire the hundreds of necessary teachers to fill critical vacancies, and yes, it is dependent on private funding and is not a permanent solution to this ongoing effort. But if they are helping just one child, then it is worth it.

So what is the answer? Believe me, I am not foolish enough to think I can formulate a plan in this short column, or any length column for that matter. I know I still ordered new back-to-school clothes for the kids. I have a grocery list that is pages long and the air-conditioner is running when I should have the windows open. Despite all the horrors of a year ago, it doesn’t seem like my life has been affected. On the other hand though, my son saw some of the news today. He remembered collecting food and supplies for the hurricane victims. He knows instinctively that there are still kids without toys. Just a month ago he held a bake sale at his dad’s office and wanted to send some of the money to help the people from Katrina. And so, humbled by my preschooler’s example, I might keep my credit card handy and instead of searching another Web site for the best back-to-school prices, I will make a different kind of “must-have” purchase. A donation to the Children’s Defense Fund or any of the still needy Gulf Coast relief organizations may be just the back-to-school item I need to begin my “new school year” before I start mindlessly packing lunches again. And there are no worries about it fitting into the new Spiderman backpack.

After a few moves around the country, Steph Rigley and her family recently settled in Winona. She could be reached on her Web site if she stopped doing laundry long enough to have her 4-year-old teach her how to create one.
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