By Town Crier Staff Report

Los Altos-area organizations and residents are pledging their support in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in Louisiana, Mississippi and other southern states.

The Los Altos Community Foundation has established a Hurricane Katrina Fund for residents wishing to donate locally. The foundation will act as the fiscal agent for the fund and will send money to the New Orleans Community Foundation in care of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s Hurricane Katrina New Orleans Recovery Fund. The two Louisiana-based foundations are working together since the New Orleans Foundation is temporarily without a home. LACF chairman Roy Lave said, “Our hope is by collecting multiple donations through LACF, we can assist the staff at (Baton Rouge) by providing them with one check, thereby minimizing the administrative burden on their organization in processing gifts toward this relief effort.”

Information about the Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s recovery fund can be found on its Web site, www.braf.org.

Meanwhile, the Town Crier staff has established a Town Crier Gulf Relief Fund. Publisher Paul Nyberg said funds will be forwarded immediately to two major agencies already in place in the disaster area: The Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity. These organizations are currently providing emergency relief throughout the 200-mile stricken area with long-range plans for home rebuilding and assistance.

Although the Town Crier Gulf Relief Fund has targeted these two organizations, donors can also designate other relief agencies to receive all or a portion of their contribution.

This new Town Crier Gulf Relief Fund will be handled the same as the 5-year-old Town Crier Holiday Fund, Nyberg said. It channels funds through fiscal agent Community Foundation Silicon Valley, which provides tax deduction receipts for donors.

As with the Holiday Fund, donors’ names will be listed in a thank-you ad in the paper in the near future.

No service fees are charged by any of the above foundations.

Among individual efforts, Los Altos resident Vinnie Biberdorf, a longtime Red Cross volunteer, was deployed Aug. 30 to Houston to be among the Red Cross crews welcoming the first 3,000 to the shelter at the Astrodome.

“I anticipate she will have many stories to share. She is one of our instructors for shelter operations and not too long ago trained Los Altos city employees in that,” said Trish Bubenik, executive director of the Palo Alto Area Red Cross. Biberdorf is among 12 Red Cross workers from the chapter being sent to the disaster scene.

Bubenik added that Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School officials have contacted the Red Cross about beginning a contribution drive among staff and students.

In Mountain View, Christina Jasper, who recently relocated here from New Orleans, is collecting nearly anything that people are willing to donate. She will weed out clothing from the donations to send directly to friends and co-workers who lost everything in the storm and will auction the rest of the items on eBay to raise money for the relief effort.

She can be contacted by e-mail, chrisiaj@yahoo.com.