Children need your help before the next disaster strikes.

When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita forced 370,000 children from their homes, schools and communities in 2005, no system was in place to care for them.

This meant that for days and weeks children in the United States didn't get food, safe shelter, critically needed pediatric medical care or trauma counseling. For weeks or months, children were out of school, putting their education on hold.

Today, five years after the hurricanes devastated the Gulf Coast, there is still no national system to protect children during times of catastrophe — but you can help Habitat change that.

Support the bill to establish a plan for children introduced by Senators Mary Landrieu and Lamar Alexander and Congresswoman Corrine Brown. It's based on practical recommendations to get the job done from the National Commission on Children and Disasters. This blue ribbon panel was created by Congress and the president to make sure children are never an afterthought in a disaster again. Its members are a mix of child advocates and prestigious nonprofit executives with a record for getting things done.

Please ask your representatives and senators to co-sponsor the Child Safety, Care and Education Continuity Act of 2010.

This bill will create a framework to meet the needs of displaced children, their families and their host communities before the next catastrophe starts. Habitat for Humanity and a broad coalition of partner organizations support it. Among other things, it would create safe and properly credentialed childcare centers in disaster areas, move money and resources quickly to school systems serving displaced children and make sure counseling and mental and pediatric health services are there for children and families.

The bottom line is that kids need us to act now, not wait until after the next emergency. Please ask Congress to enact these simple recommendations to create the safety net our children deserve.

Thank you.

Source: Habitat for Humanity (http://secure.habitat.org/c.fpIQK4OyFkG/b.6059681/k.1188/Help_Habitat_protect_children_in_disasters/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx)