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.

10 P.M. CENTRAL TIME -- We just got done touring the Reliant Center and Astrodome; it's just like you'd see on television or imagine. There are rows and rows of people everywhere and many of them have started little family groups with their cots pushed together. Some were sweeping their areas with brooms and tidying up. "We're clean people and this is our home now," one person said. I got scolded by my supervisor for trying to take a picture; apparently it violates confidentiality rights.

The ground level and the hallways around the stadium where the concession areas are are filled with people and cots. In the upper decks, the televisions mounted to show sporting event replays are each showing different things: baseball games, CNN, local news, cartoons, movies.

Many people were sleeping. Others were playing ball with the children or playing cards. Some have portable televisions or radios. There's no smoking allowed inside, so smokers congregate outside the exits. There are food depots everywhere, with volunteers handing out mostly water, candy and granola bars.

The only hostility we encountered was from local volunteers upset that their laundry service needs weren't being met. They said they didn't think national volunteers were responding quickly enough. We validated their concerns and acknowledged their work and they appreciated that.

Elaine Bernard, the CEO of Genesis, Inc., is also here volunteering with me. She was asked tonight to travel to Beaumont, Texas, in the morning because two girls were raped in a shelter there and wanted a female social worker to talk to. She expects to be there a few days. It was the only report we've heard of violence or crime happening in the shelters and our Red Cross supervisor said there have been very few problems at the large shelters in Houston.

Throughout the Reliant Center and Astrodome there are signs promoting other states. If evacuees decide if they want to move they are loaded on the next plane or bus and processed on the way. One woman, in her late teens or early 20s, stopped our group as we walked by. She and an older relative had been arguing about whether California was in Florida. When we told her it wasn't, she asked questions about what kinds of natural disasters happen in California, pondering whether to start her life over there.

One little boy ran up to one of our group members and gave her a hug, just because he wanted one.