EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
By Ruth Luse
Just before Thanksgiving thanks in part to the residents who answered the call in the Hopewell Valley News, Lawrence Ledger and Princeton Packet for food baskets Lawrence-based HomeFront, a nonprofit group, received about 600 baskets that were distributed to needy families in time for the Nov. 24 holiday.
Although the plea for baskets the most creative of which was awarded a prize ran in a few editions of the HVN, the bulk of those delivered to the HVN by generous local families and individuals came in just before the deadline or shortly thereafter. They were filled with items needed to make Thanksgiving feasts. Most of them also were works of art. My co-workers and I were impressed, to say the least, with the amount of effort the creators of the baskets must have put out to make them special for those in need.
I want to thank all those who answered our call and to give a little extra credit to those Valley residents whose baskets were awarded honorable mentions for creative efforts: Stacey Glynn-Brady, Hopewell Township; Girl Scout Troop 910 of Pennington; Amy Pearlmutter, Hopewell Township; John and Kelly Quinlan, Hopewell Township; and Carl and Shirley Swanson, Hopewell Township.
Last week, Lauren Fine, community education coordinator, told a Lawrence Ledger reporter that HomeFront has conducted a Thanksgiving food drive for many years. Food, indeed, is central to what the group does. HomeFront started out by feeding families living in the motels on Brunswick Pike.
"The holiday can be very difficult for families living in poverty," Ms. Fine told the reporter, who wrote: "For people who don’t have enough food for an ordinary meal, preparing a Thanksgiving dinner can be daunting. It is important for the families’ morale and self-esteem to be able to have holiday plans, and the food baskets give them the tools they need to survive and thrive."
WHILE FEELING PRETTY good, preparing to help my own family observe Thanksgiving and thinking how great it was that people answered our call to help HomeFront, I got a call for help from New Orleans.
The Wednesday call was from Pennington’s Jack Koeppel, who told me he’d sold his Pennington business and had decided to become a volunteer for the American Red Cross. It was a decision he already had put into practice.
"I had to come. I had to do it," he told me. He said he was calling from Louis Armstrong Park (the largest distribution site) in the center of New Orleans, one of the many areas of the Gulf Coast affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Jack’s message was not a pleasant one. He said he had been in the devastated city since Nov. 8, when his 21-day stint as a volunteer began. He has been working in "bulk distribution," which means he and his team have been giving out the "necessities" food, water, ice and disaster cleanup kits.
"People up there have no idea what’s going on down here," he said. "The city is dead."
Jack has been in change of some 40-50 volunteers working to help the people, many of whom are living in cars and under highway overpasses. "They are starving. They have no money, no food, no shelter," he said from his cell phone.
"The city is doing nothing for these people. The state is doing nothing. People are walking around with suitcases with no where to go. The evacuees are being sent back to the city from where they went after Katrina, but they have come home with no place to live," he added.
"Food and water to last 24 hours are given out, with the people returning the next day for more. It’s getting colder (down to 30 degrees one night last week). People need clothing and shelter."
"Everything is not fine," Jack said, in New Orleans, and probably not in the sections of Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Florida, the hurricane also ravaged.
Jack called, he said, to ask me to share his message with HVN readers to ask them to give what they can directly to the American Red Cross, which, he said, had to borrow money to try to meet the needs of the people they are trying to help.
Jack is due back in Hopewell Valley this week and plans to reach out to the people of this community with the story of what he’s seen in New Orleans. Among other things, he told me, he plans to take his message to local churches.
Since the late-August hurricane hit the Gulf Coast, the media has suggested that the best way to get financial aid to the people who need it is to make donations to the American Red Cross.
Some of us have given food to the needy here close to home. Others already have made donations to hurricane relief efforts, and like me, probably thought they had done their share. Obviously, that is far from true. We still see former presidents, George Bush and Bill Clinton, on TV saying the people of the Gulf Coast will need our help for a long time to come.
The major gift-giving season is upon us. Perhaps, instead of spending all of our dollars on ourselves, we should share some of our holiday budgets with fellow Americans whose lives literally have been washed away.
If you want to be of further help to the people of the Gulf region, here is the local address:
American Red Cross of Central New Jersey
707 Alexander Road, Suite 101
Princeton, 08540-6331
For more information, call 951-9787 or visit: www.njredcross.org.