Deborah Griffith was sitting on a blanket on the floor of the Superdome in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck, holding close her eight-year-old son Jeremiah.

She had listened to news reports before the hurricane struck, instructing residents without transportation to walk to designated school sites where they would be picked up and bused to the Superdome.

So the night before the hurricane hit, Griffith packed a small backpack with food and water for two days, leaving her home for a safe sanctuary at the Superdome.

She and Jeremiah were there on Aug. 28 when the lights went out and some of the roof began to tear apart.

“Water was coming in, and it was getting hot,” Griffith said. “That’s when everybody started to panic.”

By afternoon the Griffiths had made their way outside the dome to an adjacent bridge to wait for help. Then their food was gone and Jeremiah became ill.

Finally, four days after Katrina began battering the Gulf Coast, the Griffiths boarded one of three buses sent from Arkansas and Houston and were transported to a shelter in Longview, Texas.

What happened next, Griffith said, was an answered prayer.

With the knowledge her whole neighborhood was flooded, she placed a call to the American Red Cross’ financial assistance number, which connected her with Ilene McCudden in Sacramento, a place that had formerly been her home, the place where Jeremiah was born.

McCudden, a member of St. Mary Parish, had volunteered to provide temporary housing to evacuees, who now number about 434 in the Sacramento region, according to officials with the Sacramento-Sierra Chapter of the Red Cross.

“(McCudden) invited us into her home,” Griffith said, “and her daughter Kylen drives Jeremiah to his new school.”

That is St. Mary School, Kylen’s alma mater, where Jeremiah is now enrolled in the third grade.

“St. Mary’s has really done a good job of opening their arms to him,” said vice principal Nancy Sparacino. “He’s adjusting incredibly well.”

The school has raised more than $1,700, which has been donated to the Red Cross to assist hurricane victims. One of the school’s first grade students also requested that in lieu of birthday gifts students contribute to the Red Cross for disaster relief.

In Roseville, St. Rose of Lima parishioner Bob Scott and his wife Roberta have just grown their family by five.

On Sept. 29, New Orleans evacuees Philip and Toisha Brown and their three children ages 2, 4, and 6, arrived in Scott’s home to start a new life.

“I’ve experienced this exodus with them,” said Scott, whose decision to house evacuees was facilitated through the Red Cross. “They lost everything. Their house was totaled, everything gone, washed away.”

He negotiated his way through overloaded FEMA, the Red Cross and transportation systems to move the family from temporary housing with 17 people in Morgan City, La.,

“The Lord stepped in,” Scott said.

Philip Brown, who owned a mechanic shop in New Orleans, sees the decision to start over in Sacramento as part of God’s plan for his family.

“I had to have faith in God. I was taking my whole family with me,” said Brown, who plans to take a temporary job at Scott’s construction company in Roseville until he can get back on his feet and open his own mechanic shop again.

“I didn’t think there were people like Bob until I met his family,” he said. “To take someone into their home they don’t even know — I’m just overwhelmed.”

At Jesuit High School in Carmichael, reaching out to assist Hurricane Katrina victims is part of a nationwide project in which Jesuit schools are enrolling students from Catholic prep schools driven from their Gulf Coast campuses.

Jesuit Father Gregory Bonfiglio, president of the high school, said three students have been accepted thus far. “Our school enrollment was full but this wasn’t a business-as-usual situation,” he said.

One of the new students is Travis Hose, who attended Jesuit High School in New Orleans.

Hose, 16, said that there are some obvious differences between Jesuit high schools in Louisiana and California.

“I love it here. I’ve met a bunch of people,” said Hose, who plans to return home at the end of the semester. “It’s basically the same but the rules are a bit more relaxed than in Louisiana.”

His brother Matthew is enrolled in the seventh grade at neighboring St. Ignatius School in Sacramento.

“Jesuit said they were opening their doors to these families,” said principal Patty Lane. “We were given the go ahead…and said ‘Yes’ too.”

The students’ mother, Lynn Hose, arrived in Sacramento a few weeks ago with her sons, the dog and a hamster packed into her SUV. Her husband, who manages a shipyard employing 6,500 people, stayed behind to keep the business going. The family home in St. Charles Parish sustained severe wind damage and both her sons’ schools were flooded.

“It’s so sad to see the city I love so much suffer,” Lynn Hose said. “It’s not so much a question of property. It’s broken everyone’s spirit.”

Likewise, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School in Elk Grove has enrolled Ian and Kara Rosenstein, whose hometown of Pass Christian, Miss., was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Principal Tom Butler said he learned of the Rosensteins’ evacuation from Mississippi and arrival in Elk Grove during a conversation with Father Jonathan Molina, parochial vicar of St. Joseph Parish in Elk Grove.

“Their home no longer exists. They have no home, no school, no community,” Butler said. “They arrived with their three children, two dogs, two cats and the clothes on their backs.”

Michael and Julia Rosenstein, who have been temporarily living in Elk Grove with Julia’s father, had evacuated to Tennessee before Katrina hit, but had seen aerial views of what was left of Pass Christian on television.

“It was pretty much heartbreaking. Ninety percent of the town is gone,” said Julia Rosenstein.

She said the family decided they could sit in Tennessee and wait or move to California. Either decision required rebuilding their lives.

“Hearing that Ian and Kara could attend St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was the first good news we’ve had since the hurricane,” she said.

Another piece of good news is that both children “love their new school” and Ian is quite pleased to have been selected class representative for the eighth grade.

Butler said that in addition to the generous donation of new school uniforms for the Rosenstein children by one family, the entire school community has supported disaster relief efforts through a school collection which raised more than $2,800 for hurricane victims.

St. John Vianney Parish in Rancho Cordova has taken a different path to provide support for hurricane victims by partnering with St. Alphonsus Parish in Oceans Springs, Miss., where Katrina ripped off a portion of the church roof and damaged the parish school.

Father Martin Moroney, pastor of St. John Vianney, said when he was in Ireland this summer visiting the parish where he grew up, he saw lifelong friend Father Henry McInerney, pastor of St. Alphonsus Parish.

So when the hurricane hit, Father Moroney was on the telephone to his friend to offer support.

“People have really opened their hearts and dug deep,” he said. “There is a kind of bond already.”

Father Moroney added that a parish collection raised $23,000 for St. Alphonsus and the school raised an additional $4,500 for its new sister parish.

At St. Joseph School in Auburn, in addition to raising $4,995 for hurricane victims, the school community has enthusiastically embraced “Project Backpack.”

Stephanie Gerlach, a school parent, said she liked what she saw on Project Backpack’s Web site. It describes the national project, launched to facilitate the donation of backpacks filled with supplies for children impacted by the hurricane.

“I liked that it gave the kids one thing of their own and gave our families something tangible to help them explain to their kids — that there were children who no longer had homes,” she said.

Gerlach said reading some of the notes written by students to victims’ families, included in some 100 backpacks, “moved her to tears.”

Another parent, Gregg Pistochini, has teamed up with his brother-in-law to drive a 16-foot delivery van loaded with supplies to New Iberia, La., one of the few places in the area with a multi-agent supply warehouse.

St. Joseph School “has just been huge in their support,” said Pistochini, who arrived in Louisiana Oct. 2. “We’ve got tons of awesome stuff, thanks to the residents of Auburn.”

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