Southeastern NEWS

                                                       Southeastern Louisiana University
                                           Public Information Office
                                           publicinfo@selu.edu
                                           SLU 880, Hammond, LA 70402
                                           504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
    Date: 11/6/98
      Contact:                           Christina Chapple   1

SLU RESPONDS TO APPEAL FOR AID FOR MITCH VICTIMS
     HAMMOND  -- Southeastern Louisiana University students are staging a drive to collect
food, clothing and money for the Central American victims of Hurricane Mitch.
     Southeastern's Criminal Justice Society and Social Work and Sociology Clubs will set up
a station in the university's War Memorial Student Union from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 10-12 to
collect relief supplies and donations.
     Meanwhile, personnel in Southeastern's Sims Memorial Library and foreign languages
and literatures department are also accepting donations, which may be brought to the library
lobby
or Room 221B in White Hall.
     "They have really stepped up, bless their souls," Danilo Levi, an assistant professor of
sociology and native of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, said of Southeastern's response to the crisis. 
     Levi, who has been helping pack supplies for devastated Honduras at New Orleans
International Airport, said the hurricane's torrential rains and mud slides tore his homeland apart.
     "Honduras is a very poor country and this sets it back 30-40 years," Levi said. "Roads and
bridges are destroyed and there is very little electricity, food or medicine. The infrastructure is
just
gone."
     Foreign languages professor Marta Gumpert, who is also from Tegucigalpa, said the
devastation has isolated residents in cities and the country side alike and that in the hurricane's
wake, Hondurans are in need of virtually everything.
     "They need bottled water, food, clothing   for warm and cold weather   medicine,
disinfectants, hydrogen peroxide, toothbrushes, sanitary products, soap, nails, screw drivers,
hammers, can openers...everything to live and rebuild," Gumpert said. 
     For additional information about Southeastern's relief projects, call Levi at 504-549-
2116; Gumpert, 504-549-2266 or Beth Orgeron, Sims Library, at 504-549-3821.
                            - SLU -
Press release is available on the World Wide Web:
www.selu.edu/NewsEvents/PublicInfoOffice/newsf98.htm