EAST BRUNSWICK – In an effort to educate while sheltering displaced students affected by Hurricane Harvey, Mayor Brad Cohen wrote to the city of Houston’s Director of Communications Alan Bernstein to offer help.
“I think that part of being a good citizen is offering a hand to those who are willing and want to take advantage, people did that for us during [superstorm] Sandy and some people remember their acts of kindness. That is what I think being a sanctuary city should mean. … I am talking about offering something where you have to give something up for someone else. That is true charity,” Cohen said.
On Aug. 28, Cohen wrote to Bernstein offering the township as a sanctuary city for the displaced youth affected by Harvey.
In an email he wrote to Bernstein, Cohen said, “We are located in central New Jersey, just outside of Rutgers University. As you may know, New Jersey’s public schools rank highest in the nation and East Brunswick has been one of the best public school systems in the state. Our schools are just about to open and there is excess capacity to take in additional students. We also have a community that has been writing to me about ways to help.”
Cohen continued to explain that, “Finding families to volunteer and host students will not be difficult. I am waiting to hear from my superintendent of schools regarding the exact amount of capacity. Should there be greater demand than we can accommodate, we would work with surrounding towns to help organize placement of students.”
In his email, Cohen also wrote, “If there is an interest, we can also work with United Airlines, as they have hubs both in Houston and Newark, New Jersey. For parents who would want to come up and visit, we would work with area hotels to find accommodations. Many of our houses of worship would also be willing to support families with specific religious needs.”
When Cohen made his offer public, he was contacted by owner of Rotator Staffing Inc., Monte Block, who also offered support, according to Cohen.
“[Block] thought it was such a brilliant, nice offer that he wanted to do something to add to that, which was to offer people an opportunity through his staffing agency since he already spots all over the country but his second largest office, besides the one that is here in New Jersey, it happens to be in Houston,” Cohen said. “He thought that people were going to come up, maybe there would be people that would take a long time to get back to work or back to their jobs, they may need the money, so he was going to help find people temporary jobs if they came up here so that they could be making some money to pay their bills and put their kids in our good schools.”
Cohen said he has not yet heard back from anyone in Houston.
“I did make that offer to the person in charge of the conference of mayors, because they communicate regularly with mayors throughout the country. I also sent a copy of our YouTube [video] that I did with Monte, so I sent it to our representatives for contact,” Cohen said.
“I am hoping that they will be able to get it down to people in the affected areas. My problem right now is [that] it has gotten around this area in most of the East Brunswick community through social media and our own local media sources, but I don’t know if it has gotten beyond that. Any help that I can get in getting it to the people who might be more inclined to take us up on the offer would be a help.”
For more information on how to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey, visit www.eastbrunswick.org.
Contact Vashti Harris at [email protected].