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Schillings to house family of 9 for 1 year

Red Sox ace, wife Shonda connected with Fieldses through relief Web site

SchillingAP
Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is doing his part for Hurricane Katrina relief.

BOSTON - Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling and wife Shonda paid to fly a New Orleans family of nine to Boston and pledged to provide them with housing for a year.

The Fields family, with seven children between the ages of 5 and 12, fled New Orleans just before Hurricane Katrina struck. They spent the past week at an Atlanta hotel with the help of a charitable organization.

“When we realized how many people had nowhere to go, we didn’t just want to make a donation,” Shonda Schilling told The Boston Globe. “We decided we wanted to bring an entire family here and put them up.”

The families connected through a Web site, openyourhome.com, which matches displaced families with people willing to house them. The Schillings registered Friday and on Saturday anonymously arranged for the family to fly to Boston.

“He said, ‘I would like to help you,”’ Efrem Fields, 31, told The Globe in a phone interview from his hotel. “He didn’t say who he was.”

Fields and his wife, Shelita, 28, and their kids met the Schillings at the hotel. Fields said his new friend looked familiar.

“I said ‘Wait a second, I know this guy,”’ said Fields, a baseball fan. “Schilling ... Schilling, there’s only one Schilling I know, and he’s a baseball player. It blew my mind.”

  SEEKING SHELTER

Thousands of Americans across the country have also offered to temporarily house refugees who survived the disaster. The Web sites below can help connect volunteers with refugees seeking shelter:

© 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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