How wonderful that something this great can come from the massive liberal funfest that is Burning Man.
Let’s see the rich religious righties ever do something this cool.
THE BURNING MAN FESTIVAL / Hot spots at the burn
— Best camp: Camp Katrina
Katrina victims who were at Burning Man when the hurricane hit last summer and the burners who helped them recover built a museum-style display of their relief mission to the Gulf Coast.
Through pictures, words, video and artifacts — water-logged bedposts, chipped picture frames and other items collected in Katrina’s wake — burners learned the story of how artists responded to the devastation.
Using $40,000 and 7 tons of food collected at Burning Man 2005, a crew from Burners Without Borders and Burning Man Temple Builders flew to Biloxi, Miss., and rebuilt a Vietnamese Buddhist temple with donated construction equipment. In Pearlington, Miss., they rebuilt a home for a 71-year-old man who was left with nothing but the Harley-Davidson motorcycle he’d used to escape the rising waters.
By the end of their six-month stint, burners had provided $1 million worth of free demolition to homeowners, knocked down 60 homes, recycled tons of lumber into new homes, and fetched an untold number of runaway boats and sheds.
“It was a life-altering experience,” said Scott Stephenson of Jackson Hole, Wyo. “We shared gumbo with shrimpers whose homes we put back on their foundations.”
The work inspired Camp Katrina to try something new this year at Burning Man. They asked burners to skip the tradition of burning the wood from their camps and structures at the end of the event, and instead bring it to their camp so they could recycle it into low-income housing in Reno.
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