An important resource that many Katrina victim families may not know about, are free medications that most U.S. drug companies provide to kids from low income, uninsured families. U.S. drug companies give free medications every day to kids from low income, uninsured families. Kids like Michael, victims of Katrina, are especially deserving if they're otherwise eligible.

HI ANN, ME AND MY WIFE WAKE UP TO YALLS SHOW EVERY DAY! THANKS FOR REPORTING WITH INTEGRITY. IT IS BECAUSE OF REPORTERS LIKE YOU AND BRIAN, LEGENDS IN THE INDUSTRY , THAT KEEP THE NEWS HONEST AND RESPECTFUL. THANKS FOR KEEPING AFRICA, NEW ORLEANS, MISSISSIPPI, AND IRAQ, AS WELL AS MANY OTHERS FRESH IN OUR EVERYDAY, SUPPOSEDLY BUSY LIVES. MY WIFE, 2 KIDS, ALL OF MY INLAWS AND MY SELF WERE CAUGHT IN HURICANE RITA. MY KIDS WERE AGES 6 AND 5. WE WERE FORCED FROM THE LAKE CHARLES, LA AREA THURSDAY AFTERNOON. WE SEEKED SHELTER IN A SMALL CHURCH IN OBERLAND, LA. WE STAYED IN THE SHELTER FOR TWO DAYS, AND THEN AT A COUSINS HOUSE IN OAKDALE, LA DURING THE HURICANE. NOT KNOWING WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN BETWEEN THURSDAY AND SATURDAY, I FELT AS HELPLESS AS A SMALL CHILD. WATCHING MY FAMILY SLEEP ON THE FLOOR AND PUES OF THIS SMALL CHURCH BROKE MY HEART. I WRITE THIS TO SAY, MY HEART GOES OUT TO MICHAEL AND HIS FAMILY AND ALL OF THE OTHERS THAT AT PRESENT TIME ARE STILL GOING THROUGH THE HELL THAT KATRINA DISHED OUT. SO MANY DISPLACED FAMILY MEMBERS, KIDS LIVING WITH PEOPLE WHO THEY DO NOT KNOW, KIDS THAT STILL DO NOT KNOW IF THEIR PARENTS ARE STILL ALIVE. SO MANY FAMILY MEMBERS THAT WENT FROM EVERYDAY LIFE TOO NOT KNOWING WHERE THERE NEXT DRINK OF FRESH WATER WAS COMMING FROM. NEWS REPORTORS LIKE YOURSELVES KEEP THIS REALITY ALIVE. THANK YOU

Good Morning Ann
The Today Show is the start to my mornings. I appreciate the dedication that the show demonstrates. I am the Project Director/C.E.O. of a community based non profit 501C3 organization in Kentucky called Professional Administrators of America, Inc. (PAOA) Our mission slogan is to EDUCATE - Emphasizing Diversity & Understanding Cultural Attitudes Through Education. We work with school aged children in our community through tutoring/mentoring. We would like to know how we could develope a pen pal relationship with Micheal and other children that would like to talk with youth that are the same age/grade. This would be a wonderful service project for our youth and such a positive way of networking. God Bless you all and continue to keep up the good work

Thank you for keeping my hometown, New Orleans, and the rest of the Gulf Coast in the media. Your continued coverage of the rebuilding and its difficulties due to politics and red tape is greatly appreciated. There are too many people who dismiss the fact that there are people working hard to rebuild themselves -- tired of waiting for FEMA to bring the trailer or LRH monies to come in -- and it takes time...a lot of time and patience. Instead, they demand progress and wonder why the city isn't fully up and running. But your show has fulfilled its promise to not forget the Gulf Coast and ask the difficult questions. A few months after the storm, I moved from New Orleans and look forward to moving back home. But until then, your show gives me a little piece of home and comfort and I thank you.

I too am moved to help this child as it is days later since watching this piece and the image of him in pain and in tears has generated plenty of my own. After reading the comments thread, I realize that others already intend to reach out to him. How can I get involved with an organization that will help other children like Michael?

i know we all want to help michael and his family, but as you offer, remember all the other families and childern. they also need help and some happiness.i would like to help however possible.thanks

I appreciate that your show has continually shown interest in the story of New Orleans and keep it a relavant story. I myself have made two trips to New Orleans in the past 13 months to help with the rebuild. The people of New Orleans need a lot of things but a bit of compassion and some respect are not things they should have to beg for.

Thanks for all you have done.

Can you provide an address for Michael and his family?
I want to affirm his strength and help them out. I realize there may be confidentiality issues but want to do what I can to encourage him/them.
THANK YOU for another meaningful and heartfelt report on those in need.
Please keep up the good work. Your personal interest and sincere commitment are appreciated.

A story about one little boy, demonstrated a city's continuing pain, heartbreak, and devastation in the wake of Katrina. Thank you, Ann, Brian and NBC for standing firm on your coverage of the Gulf Coast.
Don't let anyone forget them.

Ann Curry, I can't even begin to tell you what an asset you are to your profession. Your touching stories are a MAJOR reason that I'm a huge NBC news fan. Your Katrina story about Michael and his family brought me to tears. My only question is, DID BUSH SEE THIS, did ANYONE in power in our government see this story! Have they seen any of the news reports from the coast over the last 1 1/2 years. It's simple, our government doesn't care about our own citizens. And your coverage of the Darfur crisis horrified me. It's seems our government is all about helping those that really don't need help but we want to "suck up to" because they have something we want. We can't seem to help those that really need our help and in a big way. Ann, please keep it up and don't let these issues just faded away until something is done to help our own countrymen and the Darfur situation. WE NEED YOU! May God bless you each and everyday and may God bless all those on our Gulf coast and give them comfort and Darfur too, because our government won't!

Ann,

Thank you for your report on Michael Jackson from New Orleans. My husband and I would like to do something for him. Maybe a bike or gameboy or something like that. Would you be able to help us with something like that? He was so sad.

I am originally from Louisana and can see the heartache that continues to happen in that city. I am grateful for the media such as yourself and Brian Williams for continuing to keep that region in the news so people do not forget that everyone there is still suffering.

Anyway, we were thinking that maybe we could add a little cheer to such a sweet little boy's life. Please let us know.

I missed Ann Curry's piece about Michael and his family but what I read above just breaks my heart. Since someone has already offered to get Michael a bike (that made me tear up) I would like to get his sisters something. We can't leave the girls out, now can we? :) I realize material things can't make the pain go away but...

Do remember that the people displaced by Hurricane Katrina are still being traumatized. Every day, over and over and over. The PTSD that they are experiencing is also translating into an cinredibly high suicide rate, and it will become a permanent rise in poverty, violence and will inevitably lead to decreased quality of life and a higher early death rate. The US already criminalized mental illness, and over 50% of ALL inpatient care for mental illness is delivered in prisons. That New Orleans still has no mental health care capacity to treat all sufferers and still has no healthcare infrastructure bodes ill - permanent and devastating ill.

The US has wrought this upon those affected by the Gulf devastation, and we are responsible for our niehgbors there. We are spending "blodd and treasure" in Iraq which serves only to line the pockets of war profitters, while we continue to spill US and Iraqi bllod, while we continue to allow the Gulf Coast to suffer unmercifully, and while we pull out the remnants of the social safety net for our fellow citizens.

We work for the betterment of shareholders and corporations that rule out country in fact, if not in policy. We ignore our fellow American at our collective peril.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you for your excellent continuing coverage on the horrors of Katrina. May we never forget those that suffered. Thank you.

Thank you for these poignant pieces, and for keeping the aftermath of Katrina in the forefront of our minds. I just returned from 3 days in New Orleans and was shocked to see that many areas still sit empty without even a sign of life. And these weren't just in the Lower 9th Ward. Middle, upper-middle, and even upper class homes sit empty...entire blocks of them...It isn't just those who were uninsured, underinsured, or unemployed who are still suffering the tremendous impact of Katrina. Adults and children whom I spoke to told me that the only "functioning" people in New Orleans are those on medication. All that having been said, I encourage Americans to visit New Orleans as tourists. The tourism industry was and is critical to New Orleans' economy and rebirth. Dine in the restaurants. Visit the museums. Listen to music in the French Quarter. Shop in the stores. Our money goes further toward helping rebuild New Orleans than any words we can utter or frustration we feel.

I deeply appreciate your story last night on this precious little boy. I want to help him and many other children in the Gulf as I'm too familiar with "childhood depression". He moved me. I will keep everyone always in my prayers & thoughts. How can I go about helping him and other children replace some precious items they might have lost?

Thank you so much for the sensitive, moving piece about Michael. It was inspirational to hear at the end how there seems, in spite of the pain he's now going through, to be hope for his recovery. But unfortunately, as I read in your post and in a recent article in the Times-Picayune, Michael is but one child out of 35,000 now in agony due to their post-storm traumas and losses. I'd like to see on NBC Nightly a weekly series called "Children of the Gulf" which would put a human face on the ongoing suffering by both children and their parents in Louisiana, Mississippi, and the rest of the areas hit by Katrina and Rita. It makes me almost physically to think about how, as people are still in anguish as they struggle to put their homes and lives back together, the Bush Administration has been callously ignoring, if it has not virtually forgotten, their plight. I'd say it's as if Louisiana and Mississippi were being treated as foreign countries, except that some foreign countries are getting a far better deal from this government than Louisiana and Mississippi are.

In my heart I know that these stories go on each and every day in that area. Most of American chooses not to see - the pain and reality are too much. People gave at first and now we hear the funds have not been used wisely I want to know if we can do a program similar to ones that are done at Christmas and by St. Jude Adopt A Firehouse and Adopt A Family. People could sponsor a family or firehouse directly with contributions each month until the needs of each one are met. I REALLY want to do this but I don't know how. If your staff or anyone who reads this knows how, please let me know. It can't be that hard. We just need an honest person to oversee the money. If we could help just that one firehouse rebuild or one family get back on their feet, it would be worth it.

Dennis Pelkey, "How can I go about buying Michael a new bike?" Of all the background noise about who's to blame for the neglect of New Orleans and what are "they" going to do about it, your single sentence touched me deeply. One to one to help a little boy. God Bless you, Dennis.

Thank you for your poignant piece on the kids in the Gulf, which seemed to highlight not only their ongoing suffering, but also their captivating resilience.

If you are looking for a way to help children like Michael who continue to suffer from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, you can contribute to The Children's Health Fund at www.childrenshealthfund.org. This organization has been delivering primary medical care and mental health services to children and families in the Gulf region since the storm hit. A link to the website is also above the link to this blog.

Dear Ann and Brian,
THANK YOU for telling stories like those of Michael. The children of New Orleans have endured horrific losses emotionally and need our support. Stories like yours bring attention to their plight and will hopefully bring hope and support to these wonderful children. Thank you again, you all produce terrific work and have remained tirelessly dedicated to the special city of New Orleans. I will continue to remain a faithful viewer.

Why do you not report on Christian organizations such as operation Blessing, Joyce Meyer, ORU and others that have been there since the begining serving the public and are still there? They seem to be more effective than FEMA>

Thank you for doing a story on New Orleans a year and half after Katrina. People need to know the reality of living in the US. I was deeply angered to learn that these men, who have risked their own lives to save others, still go without a decent firehouse, when Rumsfeld was given an elaborate farewell. The money spent for all of that pomp and circumstance, could have gone to New Orleans, to help in a myriad of ways. US tax payers' no doubt, footed the bill for that waste of time. Who cares about Rumsfeld leaving? This was a futile attempt by the Bush administration to patronize one of their own.

The US government should feel shame that in sight of our current state of affairs, they see fit to waste money on such dumb things.

And while I have your attention, did Ford really need so many memorial services? Further wastes of tax payers hard earned money. It's been a year and a half, and people are still without. Hmm... I wonder what would happen if a Katrina-like hurricane hit Washington, DC? Would Bush be sleeping in a FEMA trailer?

This story has touched our family. We would like to help Michael and his family. Please let us know how...