I thought this was neat, in light of all of the bad news coming out of the south recently.
Six Flags is going to give free admission to Katrina refugees this weekend at their park in Houston.

http://www.sixflags.com/parks/astroworld/ParkPress/Katrina.html

Shaun

Huh?

My home's washed away. I'm goin' to Six Flags!

Pardon my jadedness, but a major donation to Red Cross or some other relief agency would be much more appropriate. Maybe providing a place for refugees to get free food would be more approciated by these people.

Hello Al:

I think you are being a bit jaded. Being a Houston resident, we have many thousands of people from Lousiana staying here in hotels and shelters. Many of these people do not have a great deal of money to pay for essentials such as food and shelter (many currently in hotels cannot afford to stay much longer in them). These people are going to be away from home for quite a while and many businesses here in Houston are offering them a price break or free admission. Hopefully these freebies will help these people to not only survive, but also take their minds off their troubles for at least a short while. I agree with Shaun, Six Flags should be applauded for their generosity toward those affected by Katrina.

Keith

P.S. Six Flags Astroworld is in walking distance of the Astrodome, which is the desitination apparently of approximately 25,000 more people coming to our city from the Superdome in New Orleans. These people are being bused here and will need things to do (that they can walk to) while awaiting developments back home.

I suppose this would help them take their minds off all the bad stuff they had experienced. Even if it is just temporary. I think that it is a good idea.

Corporations are jumping in. Short list that I remember from the news yesterday:
Exxon-Mobile 2 million
Wal Mart, 1 million
Office Depot, 1 million
Kelloggs, 500,000 dollars plus food stuffs
Kroger, matching up to 300,000
Eli Lilly, matching employees donations dollar for dollar with no limit
Hess Corp. 1 million
Lowe's, matching 1 million dollars of contributions plus rebuilding supplies.

I look for the list to grow today.


Oh, and Anheuser Busch is donating 400,000 cans of... water.


Shaun

Sorry for being so cynical but as "generous" as this is, they sure are making sure they get it back; Mobil stations near Milwuakee, WI are charging $3.23+ for a gallon of gas.
Kyle

Wow, I am almost (almost) sorry I started this thread. Gasoline is a 3.49 here in Central Indiana right now and I still think, regardless of how evil some folks think corporate America is in general, the folks at Six Flags offering free admission to refugees of Katrina and their families was a class act.


Some people would complain about free ice cream being the wrong flavor.

Shaun

Now these folks are doing something useful.
I guess I just can't imagine myself in the shoes of a refugee, not knowing if I still had a home, job, business, maybe even city to go "home" to, not knowing the fates of my friends, relatives and neighbors, possibly having nothing but the clothes on my back and what I could pack into the Subaru, being very grateful for a chance to ride the Tilt-n-Hurl for free.

I just went back to the link to Astroworld and that particular page appears to be gone.

Al,

I guess I have a tendency to think of these things in terms of where I would be if I were in their shoes, so to speak. I am thinking about families that left NOLA with no specific destination and just happened to be in Houston with a credit card that was almost maxed out and some really unruly kids. Hell, I was getting ready to leave two kids at a rest stop between here and North Carolina once and I had a pocket full of money.

I realize the point you are making, though. I just thought it was a decent gesture.

Shaun

I applaud the gesture, but I question the timing. those folks will be arriving Thursday. They are much more worried about just basic survival. Perhaps the gesture would have been more appropriate a week from now. Just one man's opinion. I dd hear somethig that appalled and shamed me. I am a proud graduate of the University of Alabama (as well as VMI). I heard that a lot of refugees ended up in hotels in Tuscaloosa. There is a football game this weeend there. The hotels are telling these refugees that they are going to honor the reservations of the folks that are coming in to see the game ad the will have to leave. I pray to God someone will open these idiot minds. As an alumni, I fully understand the fanaticism of Crimson Tide football....just ask anyone who knows me, but this offends even me.

Shaun et. al.
I apologize for my comment on Exxon-Mobil. It was extremely self-centered and selfish considering that those affected by Katrina have to worry about roving bands of gunmen trying to shoot down the helicopters trying to save those stranded and all I worry about is how much I pay for gas. My frustration at the current situation of the world reached a boiling point and I did not do the smart thing and bite my tongue. I truly applaud not only those that are donating time, money, and material goods to those affected but also those survivors who have the courage to rebuild and move on with life.
If anyone feels that my post should be deleted, please PM me so that I may delete it from this discussion.
Once again, my deepest and sincerest apologies go out to the members of this forum and those affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Kyle

No worries Kyle. We all need to vent sometimes...

Shaun