Princeville Residents Express Thanks For Rebuilding Donations

Every person or group who has sent help will receive a note similar to this: This letter is to express our extreme gratitude and appreciation for your donation rendered to our town in our time of need. Your kindness has not been overlooked and will never be forgotten. Your contribution is a tremendous aid in assisting our town in the earliest stage of its rebuilding process. Although there is a long recovery road ahead, your donation is extremely a blessing to our town. Thank you and God Bless!Sincerely,

Delia PerkinsTown MayorKim BurwellPR Director

"It's just a way to show appreciation and common courtesy," says Kim Burwell, public relations director. "They went out of their way to help us. We want to show them that they are appreciated, even though it might take us a little time to get the letter out."

So far, the town has sent out nearly 10,000 of the letters and the number is expected to increase.

"At the rate it's going now, we'll probably end up doing in the neighborhood of about 40,000 to 50,000," says town planning officer Samuel Knight. "We'll still have a lot of churches and other organizations that we have not completed yet."

The town is still riddled with damaged houses, but the donations are starting to improve the place. All of the money is going into building materials that are given away to townspeople according to need.

With so much work to be done, the question becomes when is there time to write letters?

"You make time. If we get a bulk of them in today, we're going to write thank-you letters," Burwell says.

The town is not receiving a special deal from the post office to help send the letters. At 33 cents per letter, the town could spend close to $15,000 in stamps.