More than 100 BASF employees volunteer for Katrina relief efforts
Volunteers have dedicated countless hours to helping displaced residents

GEISMAR, La., September 30, 2005 -- More than 100 employees from BASF’s Geismar site are volunteering to help families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Employee volunteer efforts range from unloading boxes of food and supplies to opening their own homes to displaced families and relief workers.

“BASF employees have been helping out in so many different ways,” said Mike Cohen, Senior Vice President and General Manager of BASF’s Geismar site. “Our employees live in this community and are committed to helping displaced families get back on their feet.”

BASF is providing time off to employees who volunteer for hurricane relief efforts. In addition, many employees are volunteering their time on weekends and nights to help out. Jim Heintze, an instrument technician at the Geismar site, estimates that he has spent hundreds of hours this month preparing supplies for evacuees in the area.

A few days after Hurricane Katrina hit, Heintze, a Gonzales resident and 26-year BASF employee, began volunteering at a Hurricane Katrina collection and distribution center in Gonzales. Heintze has been spending nights and weekends unloading trucks and stocking shelves with items such as clothes, food, and diapers that were donated from across the country. Volunteers at the center—a former supermarket on Airline Highway—distribute the supplies to churches, aid groups and individual families in need.

These hurricane relief efforts are a family affair for Heintze; his father-in-law has taken two displaced families into his home.

“The stories I’m hearing from the evacuees are heartbreaking,” Heintze said. “When you talk to these people, it’s amazing some of the things they’ve had to go through. It’s good to be able to help them in some way.”

Heintze said that at least a dozen other BASF employees and retirees have volunteered at distribution centers such as the one in Gonzales. BASF has also donated supplies, including thousands of plastic bags to hold donated clothes.

Sarah Zeringue, an accountant at BASF’s Geismar site, has performed much of her volunteer work through her church, First United Methodist in Gonzales. Zeringue and other church volunteers are primarily working one-on-one with individual residents who have been displaced. For example, Zeringue helped an elderly woman who had been sleeping in her car find a private shelter. Zeringue eventually helped the woman return to her Jefferson Parish home, which was undamaged and still had electricity.

Zeringue and other church volunteers also helped locate critical items like wheelchairs, mattresses and cots, and assisted families in getting vouchers for medicines, eyeglasses and gasoline. The group also found air-conditioned living facilities for Humane Society volunteers working in the animal shelter at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center.

“BASF has really made an effort to give employees the opportunity to lend a hand to those in need,” Zeringue said. “I am so proud to work for a company that is helping to make such a difference in people’s lives.”

BASF’s Geismar site manufactures a wide range of products that are used in hundreds of consumer products.

For more information, contact:
Helen Cane
BASF
Tel: (225) 339-7207
E-mail: caneh@basf.com

Maureen Paukert
BASF
Tel: (973) 245-6077
E-mail: paukerm@basf.com