OLATHE, KS (KCTV) -
A crew of Heart to Heart volunteers is headed to the gulf to help people in the path of Hurricane Isaac.
Heart to Heart International has long been one of the first groups offering assistance when help is needed, and a return trip to New Orleans following another hurricane is no different. Their trucks are ready for the 845-mile trip to New Orleans and the people who need their help following Hurricane Isaac.
"My heart says these people will need help and we can provide that, and that's why we're going. Our function is to fill a vacuum. Where there is no medical care, we can provide it with our unit, with our big medical unit," Sue Jasperse with the organization said.
Jasperse is a nurse. She said what they're taking to the Crescent City is expertise and know-how in crisis response.
"The big unit in back of me can function as an emergency room or as a clinic. It has the ability of stabilizing the critical patients and sending them off to the nearest hospital," she said. "I have equipment that doctors can use to resuscitate patients so we can do anything from first aid to a clinic."
The Heart to Heart groups that go to areas to help can also take care of themselves.
"We're self-contained so we can stay in a disaster area for three or four days without having to hook up to anything, either electricity or water or sewer. So we could live in that if we had to for four days," Jasperse said.
Jasperse said she's eager to go to the New Orleans area, but her return there will also be bittersweet. She was there in response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
"I saw a lot of despair in the people, sadness, depression, obviously they lost everything they had. I saw people who hadn't slept for four days, this is mostly when we were in Slidell (Louisiana), before we could get in to the city of New Orleans," she said.
Heart to Heart said donations are welcome, but the best donation they can receive from people wanting to help is money. They said they're able to take those dollars, stretch them and buy exactly what they need instead of ending up with too much of one or two things.
Heart to Heart is asking anyone interested in donating to the cause to visit their website, http://www.hearttoheart.org or text "HEART" to 27722 to make a $10 donation on their mobile phone. Checks can be mailed to 401 S. Clairborne Rd., Suite 302, Olathe, KS 66062.
Heart to Heart also has volunteers in Haiti. Click here to read about that.
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