Hill Hearts and Wallets Respond to Katrina
 Eight-year-olds Ava Schwemler and Iris Wexler sold ice water to passing motorists on Saint Martins Lane this week to raise funds for the American Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity. (Photo by Michael J. Mishak)
by MICHAEL J. MISHAK
As many Northwest residents felt the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina at the gas pumps last week, many more felt the profound devastation in their hearts, volunteering their homes to displaced families and pledging donations to the massive relief effort.
From lemonade stands to relief concerts, Chestnut Hill residents responded in varied ways to what many have called the worst natural disaster in the country’s history. The storm, which hit the Gulf Coast region last Monday, and its aftermath has claimed untold thousands and displaced more than 500,000 people.
Last Friday, business owner David Schieber set up a situation room in the offices of the Chestnut Hill Community Association. Seated before a laptop computer, an emotional and sleepless Schieber worked frantically to locate an evacuee family in need of shelter.
“People told me to just send money,” he said. “But with Chestnut Hill’s resources, I thought it would be better to organize the community.”
Schieber, who owns and operates Jonathan Best in the Chestnut Hill Farmers’ Market, had already received offers from both local residents and landlords to house a family. Bowman Properties offered one of its Germantown Avenue apartments rent-free for three months.
Farmers’ market merchants pledged to provide up to three months of free food, he said. But, with manpower taxed to the limit, nonprofit relief organizations like the American Red Cross declined the offers in the short term, he said, explaining that organizations were focused on the overall effort and not recommending individual families at the time.
His voice shook as he spoke with a representative from The Caring Place, an Allentown-based social services agency that had already provided assistance to a displaced New Orleans family. While his effort to adopt the family was unsuccessful, Schieber said, “I’m not stopping here. I’m going to try to keep going forward.”
On Tuesday, with as many as 600 people forced to flee the Gulf Coast expected to arrive in Philadelphia, Schieber continued his effort, petitioning the Chestnut Hill Community Association to set up an emergency fund to aid families in the event that they come to Chestnut Hill.
 El Quetzal, 8427 Germantown Ave., is one of many Chestnut Hill shops collecting donations for the massive relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Store employees made scores of collection tins last week and distributed them to merchants up and down the Avenue.
Maxine Dornemann, president of the CHCA, said her group would set up such a fund if Chestnut Hill became a host for evacuee families. In the meantime, Dornemann said she was urging residents to contribute to faith-based organizations and relief groups.
“Chestnut Hill is one of the most caring communities around and we want to help,” she said. “The depth of suffering has touched people to the very core of their being.”
Last Friday, Mayor Street announced that the city had set up its own emergency-response program, dubbed “Project Brotherly Love,” which included housing for up to 1,000 families left homeless by the storm. While Philadelphia has readied two public buildings for evacuees, residents looking for ways to help can visit the city’s Web site, www.phila.gov, and follow the link to Project Brotherly Love.
Local fundraising efforts were in full swing by late last week.
J. Donald Dumpson, who conducted the opening night of the Bach Festival Week in April, has organized a local relief concert to benefit the National Black United Fund. The event, which will feature regional artists and a 200-voice interdenominational mass choir, is set for Sept. 11 at Bright Hope Baptist Church, 1130 Cecil B. Moore Ave. from 3 to 5 p.m. In an e-mail, Dumpson said he hopes to raise $25,000.
In the storm’s aftermath, fliers began appearing in shop windows up and down Germantown Avenue.
El Quetzal employees made scores of American Red Cross donation tins and were busy distributing them to Chestnut Hill merchants. Partnering with the Chestnut Hill Business Association, the group hopes to raise $20,000 for the relief efforts by Thanksgiving, said store manager Ellie Beal.
“We’re going to collect as much as we possibly can,” Beal said. “This is not like Sept. 11. This is not over. It will go on and on and on.”
Beal said she had already filled out a Red Cross volunteer application and received permission from El Quetzal’s owners to help if she is called. In the meantime, she said, “I just want people to put money in the can.”
Also, Beal said she is working with CHCA board member Tia Burke to organize a daylong relief concert in Pastorius Park on Oct. 1. Further details were unavailable at press time.
Democrats from Chestnut Hill’s 9th Ward announced their own fundraising effort last Thursday at a candidates forum, focusing on the area of flood-ravaged New Orleans that bears their namesake. The Crescent City’s Ninth Ward, a poverty-stricken enclave created in the 1870s by immigrants who were too poor to find higher ground, was among the areas hit hardest.
Committeepeople will be collecting donations for the American Red Cross at 12 polling sites during next week’s special election, said John O’Connell, Democratic leader of the 9th Ward. “As political activists, our first response is to collectively mobilize our resources,” O’Connell said. “It’s our hope that they will be able to return and rebuild again. The Philadelphia 9th Ward will do our part to help make that a reality.”
On Saint Martins Lane this week, 8-year-olds Ava Schwemler and Iris Wexler spent the last two days of their vacation selling ice water to passing motorists to raise funds for the American Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity. Colleen Schwemler, Ava’s mother, said the two, both students at Norwood Fontbonne Academy, came to her with the idea.
Chestnut Hill College announced last Friday that they would accept some students from hurricane-battered Tulane and Loyola universities on a commuter basis until those schools recover. The college has extended its registration period to Sept. 9 for students coming from the Gulf Coast. With its residence halls full, the school said it has no room to house the students on campus.
On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, at a check presentation ceremony in Mt. Airy, joined President Bush and other officials from both sides of the aisle in calling the federal government’s response to Katrina and its aftermath “inadequate.”
Fattah said he supported legislation introduced this week by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to restore the Federal Emergency Management Agency to a Cabinet-level, independent agency. In 2002, FEMA was placed under the Department of Homeland Security.
“[FEMA] is a lower priority in a department that’s focused on terrorism,” he said. |
