When Geoff Livingston and Jill Foster headed down to the Gulf of Mexico to see the communities affected by the BP oil spill, they thought they’d find tar balls. They didn’t expect to find communities struggling with economic depression, or an officer with bullhorn commanding them to put down their cameras. The beaches of high season were empty.

See the results of their investigation in a CitizenEffect project.

Harder hit were the fishermen and their families. Katrina had hurt the Gulf fisheries, and now the oil spill had struck another blow.

What to do?

On the ground, the bloggers worked with CitizenEffect to learn how they could help. The result is the CitizenGulf National Day of Action, a set of events across the nation on August 25.

Funds raised will go for education for children of those most affected by the BP oil spill: fishermen and their families, distributed by Catholic Charities of New Orleans.

See http://citizengulf.org to register for your local event – or start your own.