Every morning, Colette Pichon Battle gets to her office early to get some work done before the phone starts ringing. She spends each day helping people in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And every night, she limps back to her FEMA trailer. Hurricane Katrina destroyed her original office and her home in Slidell, Louisiana, just across the lake from New Orleans. It's been two years since the hurricane, and Colette is just one of the hundreds of thousands still without a stable home. "Living in a FEMA trailer is a very difficult thing," she says. "It's fun and cute for about a week, but living in there for the past two years now has been the toughest thing I've ever had to do." (LISTEN)

Colette is the founder of Moving Forward Gulf Coast, an organization that uses legal know-how and advocacy to help Katrina survivors rebuild their lives. She's leveraged her extensive knowledge of corporate and business development law to help people navigate the maze of the Louisiana relief system. Yet despite her education and experience, she still faces the same daily struggle as those less fortunate.

Colette is part of a grassroots movement that's rebuilding impoverished areas in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast. "Moving Forward and other groups like us are grassroots organizations that are really in a difficult place," she says. "These organizations are actually doing the stop-
gapping for government responsibility. Grassroots groups are doing the work that the government should do, and really giving relief to a lot of the most vulnerable." (LISTEN)

Here at FISHNET, we're seeking out grassroots groups like Moving Forward Gulf Coast and building a way for you to contribute, collaborate and communicate. People like Colette live side-by-side with the people they help, and we believe that true, lasting change comes from below, from community-based work. But many of these small organizations suffer from a lack of visibility and a lack of funding. FISHNET is a unique way to see your charitable dollar make a difference in people's lives.

FISHNET is focused on organizations that are looking beyond recovery to the hard work of rebuilding impoverished communities. We help groups that are giving a hand up, not a hand out. There's plenty of promise springing up in the Gulf Coast. New organizations have new ideas to get people better food, better mental health care, better education, and better financial practices. We believe that's the key to helping poor Americans build self-sufficient communities.