Fresno native Brian Van Anne, director of Genesis Family Center's foster care program, left September 6 to spend two weeks volunteering with the Red Cross, helping to provide mental health services to victims of Hurricane Katrina. He will share his experiences each day with Bee readers.

8 P.M. CENTRAL TIME -- We just arrived outside the Houston Astrodome and Reliant Stadium for a tour of where we will begin working Thursday. Our supervisor, a Red Cross worker from Maryland, will show us where 10,000 to 15,000 people have been living for the past week. Already, we see throngs of people in the parking lots. There are kids here with no parents, and parents who don't know where their kids are.

For the past week, volunteers have been working 12- to 18-hour shifts and many have been sent home after only three days because they've burned out. So the Red Cross now has three shifts: 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. We will be working one of the daytime shifts.

The state of Texas has taken the lead in providing health services with its own employees. So my job as one of only 16 social worker volunteers in Houston is to help the other volunteers and workers, making sure they get adequate rest, food and water and aren't pushing themselves too hard. I expect to do a little bit of everything as I fill in for other volunteers taking breaks.