News

Posted On: 09/19/2005

A personal letter about Katrina from the president of the Ashkin Group

The devastation in New Orleans and along the entire Gulf Coast has been catastrophic. For those who lived in the area or have family and friends there, out heart and prayers go out to you.

Many organizations are accepting and funneling donations to the victims, and it is gratifying to see the worldwide outpouring of support for the victims. 

But what about "our family?"  By "our family," I mean those working in the cleaning industry who have lost everything.  Who is going to take care of the school custodians, the cleaning personnel who worked for the area's facilities and contract cleaners, the environmental services workers in the healthcare facilities, and the sales and support staffs of the janitorial supply distributors, whose jobs are gone and lives have been disrupted by this horrific disaster?

I suspect that the doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other professional people will do just fine.  But who's looking after our family?

I am sending this to our industry's product suppliers, distributors, cleaning contractors, and trade
associations asking them to consider how we might band together and target our relief efforts.  Let's try and take care of our own family.  If we don't, who will?

Please visit my Web site http://www.ashkingroup.com, for helpful links and information on how we can help those in our own industry affected bythis catastrophe.

Additionally, the National Library of Medicine has compiled a new Hurricane Katrina Web page,
http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/hurricane.html that discusses toxic chemicals, which may be released because of the Katrina disaster, information on wind and flood damage, and environmental health information resources for health workers and the interested public.