Katrina Rebirth Promise Land, a charity formed by former members of Renaissance Village, is seeking $30 million in donations to house 200 Katrina survivors in $150,000 homes and needs your help.  (200 * $150,000 = $30 million) This money isn’t to help people get out of their trailers and help move into more permanent housing. The money, according to their website, would be given so that “… each family would receive their own home, a key, and a deed.” Not to help build and allow the homeowner the chance to work for the home like Habitat for Humanity, but to give a displaced Katrina survivor a deed, land, and a $150,000 home.

Charity is supposed to help, not just give someone something that everyone is working hard at jobs to attain.

According to Charlotte McGee, the president of Katrina Rebirth, “FEMA is not doing it for us, so we have to do it for ourselves,” referring to the fact that FEMA is not responsible for permanent housing (which they aren’t), nor is FEMA really charged with housing and feeding people for several years. She went on to say, “If they watch us, we’ll do a better job than FEMA did,” claiming that the former residents of Renaissance Village who received free government housing, free food, and free money can manage $30 million. It’s like giving teenagers Jack Daniels®, pot, and David Vitter’s little black book and expecting them to sit at home and stay sober. It just ain’t gonna happen.

But what really chaps my ass is, according to The Advocate, they raised $6,000 directly from the residents of Renaissance Village, people that claim that they barely have money to feed themselves, much less money to move out of the trailer park or get a job. But some did ask for their money back when the park closed, and now those people are off the waiting list. I guess, if they can’t give to the charity, then they can’t get a house.

I am a Katrina survivor. Yes, a survivor. Unable to evacuate for fear of missing the season opener for LSU, I huddled in my room, watching Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel and hoping that the prayers of the citizens of New Orleans would push the storm away, like they did for Hurricane Ivan.

When the rain and wind came on the morning of August 29, I stood outside my ravaged apartment, soaked and cold, as I smoked a Cuban and had a frozen strawberry margarita. With the power going out at noon, my fellow survivors stranded in the breezeway started consuming their emergency rations of beer, steaks, and virgins. After what had to be the longest six hours of my life, electricity was finally restored to our place, but no cable. For over one week after Hurricane Katrina, I was without cable and had to rely on the streaming video and blogs that were on the internet.

Did I ever claim a FEMA rebate? No. Did I suffer because of the storm that the environmental whack-jobs claim President Bush caused? Perhaps, but I won’t mooch off the government, but I will mooch off of you.

I, too, am forming my own charity. With your support, I can raise the quarter-million necessary to relocate my home to the mountains of Colorado on several dozen acres, so that my raging over the lack of common sense in my fellow man cannot be heard from my front porch. Oh, that, and in Colorado I can be out of the range of any hurricane that strikes the coast again.

I promise to be more frugal, unlike the Katrina Rebirth charity, and not have 9-foot ceilings, 1,500 square feet of living space, two or three bedrooms, and two baths. Your non-tax-deductible donation to my new charity, aptly named Katrina Rebuilding Action Program, or KRAP, will go straight to a needy LSU student (me) and my expenses that it will take to leave this state and move to a safe zone in Colorado.

Please find it in your heart to give a KRAP and donate. Anyone giving over $1,000 will receive an “I gave a KRAP” T-shirt to show how he gave a KRAP. I know that there is flooding in the Midwest, worse flooding in New Orleans, and there are charities that work hard to give a hand up to those who really need it the most, but when you give a KRAP, you are helping one outstanding LSU student spread the LSU spirit elsewhere.

Now, on the other hand, if we can pick where these new modular homes will be located for the Katrina Rebirth Promise Land charity, then maybe I will consider giving. I hear Alaska is out of the path of any hurricane, and land prices are really low …