Donating beets

Twenty-five years ago, I woke up to find the interior walls of my apartment shaking.

That was Hurricane Andrew's way of saying, "Hello!  I've arrived!"

I was lucky.  I lived in Miami Lakes, Florida, at the time, which is five minutes south of the Broward County line.  All we got was a lot of downed trees and some relatively minor property damage.  I didn't even lose power.  The worst inconvenience was that my AC didn't work for a week.

The people down in south Dade County?  They lived through what people in Houston are living through now; the aftermath of a severe hurricane.  There are differences between Dade County's experience and Houston's.  Andrew was known as a "dry storm".  It moved in and out of the Miami are very fast, and thus, the majority of damage was wind damage.  The Houston area is dealing with catastrophic flooding.  Much of their damage is water damage.

In both cases, Andrew and Harvey left behind a large population in desperate need of help.

I did have some canned goods in my apartment that I didn't need. So I donated those.  A few days later, I went with some friends over to the Opa-Locka Airport to help sort and pack supplies being ferried in from all over the country.

One well-meaning but misguided soul sent down several industrial-sized cans of beets.

Yes, beets.  A dark-red vegetable that is touted as being good for you but that probably few people would eat.  (No offense to those who are beet lovers.)

So, Tina, what's your problem with beets?

Well, first of all, they're beets.  Enough said there.

But my main problem was this:  You're sending down industrial-sized cans of food into an area with NO POWER.  If you open that industrial-sized can of beets, and you don't eat it all, what happens when you can't store your leftovers because you don't have power to run a refrigerator?
I have many memories of Andrew:  the people that were concerned about us, the pictures on TV, Bryan Norcross' laryngitis after being on the air for so many hours, a piece of plywood with "Welcome to Homelessstead" spray painted on it.  But it's the story of the beets that I keep coming back to, because for me, it just encapsulates in one example what people don't need after a disaster.

In the aftermath of Harvey, I'm heartened to see that one of the very first concerns of people has been, "How can I help?"  And I'm sure one of the first responses of people is to gather up stuff they don't need, pack it, and drop it at the nearest place collecting supplies for the people in Houston.

Well, before you start packing, read this article.

Kindly, but firmly, Amy Slenker-Smith states that Houston does not need your stuff.  What they need is money.  That money can go into the hands of people on the ground there, who know what to get and how to get it there.

This article gets much more specific about what NOT to donate.  Used clothing?  Don't bother? Stuffed animals?  Sounds fine . . . but, as a quote from the article says, a teddy bear can't pay for a funeral.

There are organizations you can contact who know what they are doing and how to do it.  They can tell you what they need and what they don't need.  My own church is in contact with several churches in the Houston area--people on the ground--who will give them ideas of how to help.  Next week we are taking up a special collection of funds specifically for Harvey relief.  We also, in the near future, plan to send people to aid in the recovery effort.  This is similar to what we did many years ago with Katrina--we partnered with a church on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and sent teams of volunteers in over a period of a year.  The people we send, and any items we will send, will only be sent in cooperation with people that are in the area--not a "willy-nilly" collection of items, and not just a group of people saying, "Hi, we're here; put us to work."  (We are planning to collect and send cleaning supplies in the next few weeks--buckets, mops, brooms, trash bags, etc.  Those will be needed.)

So how can you help people affected by Harvey?

Find an organization you trust and make a cash donation.  If they're a group like Churches of Christ Disaster Relief (that my own church has worked with) and they are asking for specific items, go donate.  These groups know how to get the stuff to where it needs to go.

If you pray, pray.   If you belong to a church, maybe they know a place where you can volunteer your services.

Just don't throw stuff into a box without thought and drop it off at a collection point.

And, for the love of all that is holy and reasonable, please do not send any industrial-sized cans of beets.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Harvey, devastation, the truth, and "rich man's problems"

No, a shark was not swimming down a Houston freeway next to a driver.

No, the planes at Houston Hobby airport are not underwater.

No, there are not alligators crawling up Houston driveways.

Yes, the rainfall in the Houston area is being measured in FEET, not inches.

Yes, the National Weather Service did have to add colors so that it could accurately show how much rain has fallen in the area.

Yes, people are stranded on rooftops and being rescued by people with boats.

Yes, the police have gone looking for boats to commandeer.

And yes, the videos and many of the pictures coming out of Houston and other areas are heartbreaking.

This morning, I posted a Facebook status saying that I wondered if some of the pictures I was seeing were fake.  One picture, of an assisted living center with water up to the residents' waists, I wondered if it were real.  Unfortunately, it was real.  My post sparked some discussion about stuff that was fake and real.  There are fake photos going viral (including one of President Obama serving food at a shelter -- that photo is a real one, but it was from Thanksgiving 2015, where he was helping at a homeless shelter.)  It may not be accurate to refer to some photos as "fake", as in "Photoshopped", but rather "mislabeled", as in the Obama picture I mentioned.  Also, the alligators crawling up the driveways are real pictures, but not specifically from Harvey.  I understand that there IS an alligator refuge in danger of flooding where alligators could escape.

I have read at least one Facebook post urging us to pray rather than worry about fake pictures.  A friend answered that it wasn't helpful to be passing along fake information.  I also pointed out that one could pray and also be concerned about what information is true or false.

In my church's small group on Sunday, I shared some personal concerns.  One of them is about our dryer, which decided it didn't want to heat.  It's since decided to start heating again.  I suspect it may need to be serviced.  One of the small group members commented that many of our problems are what are called "rich man's problems".  In my case, although I have a malfunctioning dryer, I live close to a laundromat.  I can take my laundry there and back.

I also tend to whine about not having an iPhone (my Android only has about 2GB memory) and about only having one car.  But I have transportation, and my husband can take public transportation to and from work.

In comparison to the vast majority of the world, I am rich, and therefore, several of the problems I have are "rich man's problems."

In contrast, what the people in Houston are dealing with are NOT "rich man's problems".  They are life or death problems.  Six people are already dead in flooding and I'm sure the death toll will rise.  As I write this, I'm watching Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel, and he's reporting a levee breach in one area.  A FB friend has family in the area and she's very afraid for them.  People have lost power, they have no running water, and they are running out of food.  Hundreds, probably thousands, will wind up losing everything.

Those are NOT "rich man's problems".

THOSE problems put my "rich man's problems" in perspective.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.