Peachtree Employees Offer Time, Resources and Hope to Hurricane Victims

The Peachtree Companies Inc. and Wausau, Wis.-area residents donated food, personal items, school and cleaning supplies, and wrote messages of encouragement to Hurricane Katrina victims in a relief drive held Saturday, September 24. Peachtree transported the collected items to Biloxi, Miss., an area that suffered irreparable damage from the category-5 storm.

"It feels good to know we were able to help during a time when many Americans urgently needed our help," said Pat Wierzba, director of logistics and facilities for The Peachtree Companies and relief drive coordinator. "I'm truly impressed by the immense compassion shown by our employees, their families and residents of the Wausau area."

Jerry Spaude, a company driver, delivered the donations to a Salvation Army distribution center. Volunteers from across the country unloaded and sorted the items for distribution to hurricane victims. At a local football field, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Salvation Army and other relief organizations distributed care packages to victims. There, Spaude hung banners signed by many Wausau-area residents who wrote messages of hope to hurricane victims.

Spaude recounted the destruction as more staggering than what television stations reported: Homes were scattered everywhere and families lived in tents with nothing to their name and nowhere to go. Highway ditches were full of debris that looked as if it had been plowed off the roads like a significant snowfall, he added.