Las Vegas NowBurning Man Celebrants Donate Items to Katrina Relief Effort

Unused food and bottled water from the Burning Man counterculture festival is being stockpiled for hurricane evacuees arriving this week in Nevada.

Burning Man celebrants began donating items to the relief effort near the end of last week's festival in the Black Rock Desert about 100 miles north of Reno. Others dropped off items as they departed Sunday and Monday.

About 800 people from New Orleans left homeless by Hurricane Katrina are scheduled to stay in Nevada and about 300 of those are expected in the Reno-Sparks area.

The evacuees are expected to begin arriving in Reno this week. They will be taken to the Nevada Mental Health Institute in Sparks, where they'll receive food and register with the Red Cross, which will oversee and manage each case.

A third of the evacuees will be sheltered in unused housing facilities on the mental health campus, while the rest will be taken to the Army National Guard training center in Stead.

Washoe County schools Superintendent Paul Dugan said the district will absorb as many school-age children as necessary.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)