Pictures From Volunteering in the Rockaways

Superstorm Sandy Direct Relief:A Grassroots Model Beyond Government and Mega Charity Organizations

It was Saturday, November 4th and Superstorm Sandy had struck New York City on October 29th, but the peninsula community of Far Rockaway Queens still had no power or water and looked like a war zone. My great grandparents, long since deceased, lived there in their retirement. I felt the need to help as how could this be the situation five days later just eight miles from my home in the “Capital of the World”?

Starting Friday evening I tried the traditional volunteer route:  New York Cares, Red Cross and other traditional charities. They just wanted donations of money. They needed volunteer profiles filled out that would be reviewed in a week. Donations of time or materials were too much to handle. But the pictures from social media and the press indicated that help was not getting out to Far Rockaway or Staten Island.

I searched Facebook and Twitter for people collecting canned food and supply donations. People were willing to give supplies, but it is one thing to pull some cans from your cupboard and it is something else to actually get it to the place that needs it and into the hands of the people in need. A local NYC Council Representative from Queens had accepted emergency supplies all week at their office but had no way to get the items to people in need.  Mega charity organizations didn’t want them.  No one had gas. My parents had, prudently, kept our car filled with gas and we just showed up at the office of City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer and filled our SUV with supplies donated by his constituents and drove towards the Rockaways. The scene got more apocalyptic as we neared the shore. Boats in the middle of the road. Destroyed homes. Deep sand in the paved roads. Wet contents from inside homes piled on the street and bulldozers carrying it all away. I wondered if it would have been better to just text $10 to the Red Cross. There was an American Legion Hall on Broad Channel Drive accepting donations and giving out supplies, but you needed a car to get to it and any cars in the Rockaways when Sandy hit was flooded with sea water and would not start. For a minute I thought about dropping off our canned food and batteries and other precious cargo and turning around. I was determined to get to the public housing projects in the Rockaways where people had no car and my hunch told me were in greater need than the people able to drive or walk to the American Legion.

We arrived at the makeshift supply drop off spot at Sal’s Deli on Beach 113 St. Sal had lost his business to the storm surge, but since he had shelving he was letting residents come in and “shop” for free for donated supplies. Sal was already my hero. He lost everything, but 5 days later he was still helping his increasingly desperate neighbors. He was hearing heartbreaking stories of people on the East end of the peninsula, the poorer end, not getting any help. Diego, who had no formal role but spoke in confident way that people instinctively follow, agreed and we arranged a caravan of 5 cars to take extra supplies. We wanted to “franchise” Sal’s Deli.  But where? We needed a place we could store supplies overnight even if we set up shop outdoors. We decided to focus on houses of worship, specifically those still standing.

We drove past National Guard Humvees with armed troops. Some were pumping out water.  But there was no sign of the Red Cross or any other charity distributing supplies. We found the Full Gospel Tabernacle at Beach Channel Drive & 42 St next to rows of those bleak 15 story public housing projects that were without power. The Pastor agreed to let us set up on his front yard and provided the folding tables that in better times are used for church pot luck dinners. We gave him bottles of bleach and other cleaning supplies so his few grateful parishioners could continue to clean up the inside of the storm damaged building.

We set up tables with the donated supplies. We sent a “marketing team” into the lobby of the public housing project so that people knew it was worth walking down 10 flights of stairs for what we had. …then the “customers” showed up. First a trickle, then in droves. The residents were incredibly grateful since even the best prepared ones never thought they needed 5 days of water and food and batteries in NYC! We then took to Social Media and got people to start bringing supplies directly to our relief site. Rather than just take their drop offs we would ask them to stay and sort and have face to face contact with our “customers”. Sometimes they would agree to make the risky run back to Sals as we restocked throughout the day.

Hundreds of families got what they needed for a few more days till the power could come back on and stores could reopen and restock. It was an exhausting day but we had given out everything (except those fancy sofa throw pillows that someone had thought would be a good disaster donation). Late in the afternoon I realized I had not had a bite of food or left my fold up table for even a minute to go to the bathroom. My discomfort was alleviated by hugging a woman who was  happy to find baby food and diapers, and shaking the hand of a man who said the twelve D batteries I handed him would keep his lantern on a few more nights.

It was Organic. Spontaneous. Grass Roots. In the days after a disaster, there are people willing to help and lots of donated supplies, but the mega charities can’t move fast enough to harness these resources. You just have to ACT BOLD. My parents are both serial entrepreneurs and I have learned from them what a small band of committed people can accomplish while a Fortune 500 company is still drafting memos.

A family friend who works for the Red Cross read about our efforts that day. This was his post on the photos I posted on Facebook:

So glad you were all able to make it out there and it sounds like you really made a difference in an area with desperate need! After everything settles down, would love to do a chat to hear more about the grassroots efforts you participated in. I think a lot of the larger relief organizations and institutions, from NYC OEM to the Red Cross can learn a lot going forward from you.