I will agree that the past 7 months have taught me a lot about not forgetting the victims after the news teams leave.
We were amazingly lucky; all we lost was part of our roof. I work with a number of people, and have I don't know how many students, who are still displaced.
And it has made me remarkably attuned to these tragedies, and to the need to help someone at the grass roots level. I have a check upstairs to mail today to a Catholic Church in Moore OK. Not a national organization, but someone local who will put the money to good use without administrative costs.
This year we're also doing a Stay-cation, and I want to hit the Freeport Nautical Mile as often as I can to support the small businesses who have reopened.
Probably what made me angriest was in the immediate aftermath of Sandy, before election day. A big name politician arrived in Massapequa (I think, it may have been another area devastated by the storm) to survey the damage. She had a winter coat on, and got out of a heated car, then pressed the flesh as she saw how bad it was. And all I could think as I saw the coverage was: those people are so very cold, with no coats or blankets-- we had 6 inches of snow about a week after the storm. And this politician walked among those people-- to do what??? She wasn't handing out coats or blankets or Clorox or Hefty bags, she was seeing what a hurricane can do to an oceanfront community. Was she unable to tell that from the pictures?? The money that was spent getting her into NY, the money that was spent on her security detail, the gas that was spent at a time when we were waiting 2 hours (or more, I got lucky) for gas-- what a tremendous waste it was!! And waste, particularly at a time when resources are stretched so very tight, makes me angry.
Anyway, I'm far more attuned to the needs of those people in the pictures. At Christmas, for my annual Christmas party with my sisters and friends, we had a housewarming for one of the teachers in my school who lost everything in Sandy. (She's still displaced, but had finally found a rental apartment and was starting from scratch. She hopes to move back home this summer.) My husband and I went VERY light with each other so we could give a small donation to the people at work who had lost their homes. It wasn't much, but it was a little.
I've learned a lot about the value of a lot of people each doing a little. And then... and it's the important part... continuing to do a little more.
While I'm still on a roll here, let me tell you about another friend. She and her husband didn't wait for the FEMA check to come, they sunk every dime they had into rebuilding their home. They moved back over Easter vacation. And found out shortly afterward that, in spite of having done all the paperwork through Long Beach, Long Beach had changed the rules and their house needs to be raised something like a foot or two. So their brand new, barely used house, isn't to code, even though they filed all the correct paperwork. Yes, they've hired a lawyer.
Forgive me for rambling. This is obviously a topic that hits close to home.