In the days immediately following the devastation caused by the hurricanes, there was little reason to believe that normalcy could ever return to the Gulf Region. Faced with this devastation, thousands of people responded with unprecedented giving in the days, weeks, and months following August 29, 2005.

However, as usually the case, memories of those days faded from many of those outside the region and with it, a sense of urgency. But through the words of President Herbert Hoover following the devastating flooding in Mississippi in 1927, we are reminded that we have faced similar challenges:

“We have before us perhaps the most difficult and discouraging of all periods. No longer is there the excitement of catastrophe, the stimulation of heroism and fine sacrifice. Reconstruction is always the most trying of all periods of the disaster.”

A recent contribution from a class of students in Africa shows that there are people determined to remember:

Click here to view the students' letter

The following are images of more signs of hope and rebirth from the region and voices of familiar voices that remind us further that progress is helping to restore hope. But your help is still very much needed.