Congratulations Ben!

I just found out that an old friend of mine, and my sister's best friend, Ben Brandzel, is the one responsible for HurricaneHousing.org. He's currently in Gulfport, Mississippi talking with people and getting their stories. He's 25.

He joined Moveon.org a couple of years ago, and became responsible for a lot of their web presence. Hurricanehousing was a website he proposed. He takes no credit. (Link.)

Thanks to the tens of thousands of generous individuals that offered housing, we helped nearly 30,000 hurricane victims start over. (Link.)

The first quote is from the blog of my friend John. The second quote is from Hurricane Housing's website. When I was a junior in high school, I adopted the abovementioned Ben Brandzel as my little brother. I'd always wanted one, and I decided that freshman Ben would do just fine. He aquiesced and still calls me Di to this day (a pun on my last initial and and a common abbreviation of Didi, which means older sister in various Indian languages.)

I've got to say, I have damn fine taste in siblings. Even in high school Ben was a tireless social activist. When he was in college, Ben started the Collegiate Click Drive for hunger. Later, when I met up with him in New York, he was touring America with Coldplay, getting out the message for Oxfam. Now he works for MoveOn.org, and you very well may get advocacy emails from him.

So I knew he had been in Gulfport and New Orleans, and I probably should have realized HurricaneHousing was his idea, but I just have to say, I'm terribly proud of him right now.