Long Beach, California responded. Our city hosted hundreds of events to help the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and many other large and small organizations aiding the massive relief effort. Long Beach residents and businesses have hosted fundraisers, food drives and other activities to help -- We are demonstrating that Long Beach cares.

"...the Long Beach area at its absolute best."
Press Telegram's Tom Hennessy re: "Operation Lifeline"*

How This Website Began

Long Beach Cares.org, was created by Lorenzo Gigliotti, founder of G-site Web and LongBeachOnLine.net in September 2005 shortly after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf region of the US.

Objective of Long Beach Cares.org

LongBeachCares.org is a website which was developed to raise local awareness about the massive destruction left by Katrina and to list all of the local Long Beach events that were taking place to help. In the hurricane's immediate aftermath, separate and unrelated events in Long Beach, California raised a great deal of money and the spontaneous outpouring of individual and group activities was truly beautiful -- small children selling lemonade -- teenagers emptying their piggy banks -- buckets in parking lots filling up with drive-thru cash donations -- neighborhoods hosting block-long yard sales -- a group of local artists that even adopted a family from Long Beach, Mississippi... and then there was the PT event -- "Operation Lifeline" ... the list goes on...

"Long Beach Cares"

The LongBeachCares.org website was left up, even after the disaster was no longer the lead story in the media, and just when it seemed that everyone was forgetting... The spirit of LongBeachCares.org somehow managed to live on and was picked up by our City Council, which began a campaign to aid the City of Long Beach, Mississippi. The "Long Beach Cares" name was applied to the campaign and this website was adopted by the City to aid in its efforts. In January 2006 the City donated two work trucks to Long Beach, Mississippi. The City brought in Lindsay Shields to direct the effort -- groups of volunteers were formed to organize fundraising events and raise public awareness regarding the ongoing struggle to put Long Beach, MS on the road to recovery. Several Long Beach Cares volunteers went to Long Beach, Mississippi and were awestruck by the sheer volume of the devastation.

Youth Involvement in the Katrina Relief Effort Long Beach Youth Services adopted the 'Long Beach Cares' title for a video featuring LB youth oriented relief efforts. It helped them achieve a 'Top 5' award for the '100 Best Communities For Young People' Submitted by Long Beach Youth Services

How to Participate
We request the submission of local charitable events sponsored by municipal and national agencies, as well as those put on by schools, churches, youth groups and other similar groups aiding in the relief efforts. We'd even like to know about lemonade stands, car-washes and yard sales that are being held to help the disaster relief efforts.

*Operation Lifeline -- The Long Beach Press Telegram and LBCC event raised over $45,000 in two hours. It was one of several very successful Long Beach relief efforts showing how much Long Beach cares.