Friends of Asbury Park,
I am always overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and sense of community that
is shown by people after a disaster situation. It touches something primal in
all of us and reminds us that "we are in this together." Given the positive
energy that is flowing from so many right now, I wanted to offer a few thoughts
and suggestions on how people can best help as we move forward in cleaning up
and rebuilding the great state of NJ, block by block, town by town.
1. Go see your neighbors. Just check in with those immediately around you and
see if there is anything they need.
2. WAIT before organizing anything significant in terms clothing drives, food
drives, etc. Unless a specific call has been put out for specific items to a
specific family/organization in a specific location, you may be wasting time
and resources. Also, if a call does go out for clothing, do NOT use this as an
opportunity to empty your closets of stuff you don't want any more and just
never threw out. I saw this during 9-11 and the Haiti earthquake relief
efforts. Supplies were amassed that either were not needed or were completely
inappropriate (ex. sending unwanted winter clothes to Haiti).
3. Other than helping your immediate neighbors, WAIT to hear from leaders in
your community on how you can best use your gifts, talents and resources to
serve the recovery, clean-up and rebuilding efforts. I know that this can be
tough and that you want to "do something" but again, we do not want to do
something just for the sake of action, we need to be intelligent, efficient,
and effective in our individual and collective efforts.
4. In the coming days I am certain that calls will go out at the local, county
and state level for volunteers to meet the most pressing needs. WAIT for this
call and be ready to serve in ANY capacity that you can. No job will be too
small or unimportant in this effort. We all will have roles to fill, let's
fill them with the greatest spirit of cooperation that we can.
I have been in contact with city officials and community leaders, things are
starting to take shape and I am sure that specific calls will be going out in
the coming days for what we need. As soon as I have any concrete information,
I will post it.
Again, we are in this together. Stay strong.
Peace, Jim Keady
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AsburyPark/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
asburypark-dig...@yahoogroups.com
asburypark-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
asburypark-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
