Helping A Little
When people are camping out on overpasses because their homes are flooded, it seems silly to be talking about my own internal mini-angst. In a way, Hurricane Katrina has peeled back the layers of those cities and towns and now we can see the poor and destitute, the ones we ignore under normal circumstances. Today, the television brings the faces of those desperate people into my family room with its second-hand furniture and I feel guilty for the luxury of my life.
We have so much.
That's why I'm sending a donation to The Salvation Army. I once had a friend who lost everything in a house fire. She went to run errands and came home to a sooty shell of her home. People gave her family stuff, trying to help. At one point, they had seven couches in the garage, but no cookie sheets and no silverware. So, even though people are having their children go through their toys and are loading up clothes to send, that's not really the most helpful idea.
Send some cash. (We donated to the Salavation Army online, but you can also go to the Red Cross website.) A hundred bucks will pay for dinner, a babysitter and a movie. Or it can buy meals for a family of four for two days, a case of water and cleaning supplies (mop, buckets, etc.)
We have so much.
That's why I'm sending a donation to The Salvation Army. I once had a friend who lost everything in a house fire. She went to run errands and came home to a sooty shell of her home. People gave her family stuff, trying to help. At one point, they had seven couches in the garage, but no cookie sheets and no silverware. So, even though people are having their children go through their toys and are loading up clothes to send, that's not really the most helpful idea.
Send some cash. (We donated to the Salavation Army online, but you can also go to the Red Cross website.) A hundred bucks will pay for dinner, a babysitter and a movie. Or it can buy meals for a family of four for two days, a case of water and cleaning supplies (mop, buckets, etc.)
posted by Melodee at Wednesday, August 31, 2005
2 Comments:
You're right, Mel. Feeling doesn't help anyone, unless it moves us to action.
What we want to change we curse and then pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can with eyes and hands and tongue. If you can't bless it, get ready to make it new.
--Marge Piercy, "The Art of Blessing the Day"
I was a victim of a fire. No one helped. No one came -- outside of the 200 spectators who watched the house burn down to the ground.
I'm sorry. One woman gave us a dog leash.
We had no clothes, no tooth brush, NO SHOES, no purse, no money, no credit cards, nothing.
No Red Cross came, no salvation army. Zip-nadda.
It was the hardest struggle of my life.
I can't help but get mad when I think of the Red Cross today because of it.
We were important enough to write up in the newspaper, but that is where it ended.
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