Have you ever lost your favorite shirt? You know it's somewhere, but you just can't find it. It's not in the drawer or in the dirty clothes. It's not under your bed. You didn't leave it at your best friend's house. You know you couldn't have left it outside. And finally you find it in your little brother's room!
But what if it not just your favorite shirt, but everything — all your clothes, your furniture, your books, the TV, and all your video games?
What if your whole house is gone, along with all your neighbors' houses? There are no stores, no church and no school. Even worse, all your friends are gone, too. Everything familiar about your city is lost.
For many kids in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast, this is exactly what happened when Hurricane Katrina hit. What wasn't washed or blown away by the storm was ruined by the flood waters.
Many kids had to leave the city and go to live somewhere else. Some have come back, but many still live far away from what was once home.
Kevin lives with his family in Texas. They have some of the things they need, like a place to live and clothing to wear. Kevin's mom has found a job. But some things are harder to replace, like health coverage.
Visiting the doctor and paying for medicine can be very expensive. In New Orleans, Kevin and his brother and sister had a kind of health insurance called SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program. But each state has its own different health coverage programs. When Kevin's family had to evacuate from New Orleans to Texas, they were no longer covered by Louisiana's SCHIP program. In Texas, they had to start over and apply for the Texas SCHIP health coverage program where eligibility, the application process and benefits are all different than in Louisiana..
It took a long time for Kevin's family to get new health coverage. Meanwhile, the children suffered from many health problems. Without health coverage, Kevin's mother could not afford to take them to the doctor. When your health coverage is lost in the storm, it's hard to stay healthy.
— Adapted from information in My Boat is So Small: Creating a Safe Harbor of Hope and Health Care for All Children. National Observance of Children's Sabbaths Manuals, Volume 16, by Shannon Daley Harris. Copyright 2007 Children's Defense Fund. Used with permission of CDF.
Back to kids 4 being healthy