My Life Belongs to the Whole Community...

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.

~George Bernard Shaw

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Good Morning! It has been a crazy past few days. I have found myself crying at the smallest things, at the oddest things and at the most beautiful things. They say that with faith you find strength. Many people still search every day for a God to believe in, for a reason to keep going, for meaning that they may never truly understand. Well we are human. We question, we wonder, we ask, we ignore, we believe and we begin again every morning. Life makes us remember that time is not something we can control.

In an instant a child is born, a flower blooms, a baby cries, laughter rings out, lives are changed and lives are lost. If you have seen any sort of news outlet you know about the devastating scenes that surround a town and state that I cherish. We are still combing through the rubble even as the academia class this storm a Category 1 Natural Disaster - that my friends means that we are now the history books with Hurricane Katrine and 9/11. I am beginning to accept that life here will be termed a timeline event; a Before & After. Already our local news source ,Tuscaloosa News, offers the unique tool using Geo & Google Earth to see the exact Before & After. Modern media outlets were able to utilize technology that filmed live the devastation as it literally tore a path across three states. They were there when the lights went out in each town and as my own family huddled in the basement of our home. We all have been through terrible storms, tornadoes, hurricane winds or some weather controlled scare but this day was different. We knew it even before we saw the horrible images online.

Our power was out for 3 days, for others it still is and who knows when it will return. Alabama Power has worked diligently to restore power to so many areas. But friends the "area" is so large. We have National Guard units, my brother's included, patrolling our town hoping to keep looters at bay. We are under a curfew every night. Areas are still under a boil water advisory. We lost 3 schools - LOST - as in gone. Who knows when school will return to some form of normalcy. This storm hit on exam week and commencement week for our University of Alabama and others. These are just a small collection of the impact of the storm in my area.

There are other areas: Hackleburg - the town is gone, the people remaining are trying to get help. Sawyerville is much the same, Moody, Phil Campbell - towns that will not only need aid but will have to completely rebuild EVERYTHING.

So I decided to quit the tears, to reach out and see what this writing community, this collection of amazing people can pull together and do. Some of you, my dear Royal Court, will have received emails from me. I hope that we can ban together and do something for the rural communities in this great state.

I have created the blog: ALL 4 ALABAMA. I plan to soon begin auctioning off items & services in order to raise money for those rural affected towns. If any of you would like to contribute, be it an idea, an item, a service or even a dollar please contact me. I plan to go live with the auction as soon as possible. It will just take a little bit to get all the items set up, so please keep watch on the blogs (this one and the ALL 4 ALABAMA); go over and follow it in order to keep updated on all news.

The people need help. Truly. Please do what you can. I know we can do this and by golly we will do it well! Please spread the word - tell people that you know who can help donate or supply items for auction to contact me.

contact me at all4alabamarelief(at)yahoo(dot)com