Congregation
B’nai Israel Hurricane Relief Committee
Report
to Annual Meeting of January 11, 2009
Submitted:
Rick Weil, chair
- We provided many Services
to Evacuees in Trailer Villages in and around Baton Rouge.
- Most importantly, we established a Café at Renaissance Village,
supplied it with Community Coffee, and newspaper & magazine
subscriptions. The Café was
intended to become a community center, and it succeeded. It had over 600 unique visitors a
month and became the social center of the park, helping reduce
isolation and stress, and becoming a place for obtaining good
information. It lasted over a
year.
- We threw a large party for residents in July, 2007, with
jambalaya, snowballs, and a brass band.
Rick Weil also conducted a recovery survey & gave the
results to the residents. We
were later told that this was the best event during the life of the
park, bringing a little joy to a very stressful & depressing
situation.
- Propane tanks used for heating and cooking, because the
authorities did not provide enough.
We also provided chains to prevent thefts of propane tanks.
- Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday turkey dinners.
- Tables and chairs for their meeting tents.
- Outdoor Bulletin Boards for notices.
- We tried to provide water fountains, but were refused by park
management.
- The resident leaders & service providers told us we were
really the only group that was there from the beginning and helped out
till the end and the one that made the biggest impact.
- Committee member & LSU Social Work professor, Daphne Cain, organized several
programs at the trailer villages for wellness, children’s nutrition,
adult education, a vegetable garden, and other projects, partly funded
by the committee.
- We co-founded and have helped support an After-School Music Program for middle-school children in New
Orleans, called the Roots of Music.
The program is directed by Rebirth Brass Band snare drummer,
Derrick Tabb. The program has
been operating since summer, 2008, and is a runaway success, with 100
children and plans to grow to 200.
The children are almost all at-risk, and the program is
redirecting their energies to constructive activities; it also provides
academic tutoring and requires a 2.5 GPA to remain in the program. Not a single child has dropped out,
and there has been exactly one fight (two girls ganged up on a
boy). After 6-9 months, the
children have become amazingly good: they will march in several Mardi
Gras parades this year, and may play at Jazzfest. The National Association of Music
Merchants is considering featuring the program as a model to be followed
nationally.
- We are considering sponsoring an Avodah (national Jewish service corps) intern to work with
the Roots of Music program. We
are still in negotiations and planning with both groups, but do not yet
have final commitments.
- We supported a community Sukkoth program by Moishe House in New Orleans. Moishe House is a local house that aims
to promote a vibrant and diverse Jewish community of people in their 20s
and 30s. It is helping rebuild
New Orleans’ reduced Jewish population by helping support young
newcomers and encourage young long-timers to stay.
- We provided Christmas gifts to Vietnamese evacuees in Baton Rouge, who were temporarily
living at the St. Anthony’s parish shelter in Baton Rouge.
- We distributed approximately 20,000
pounds of goods, donated from around the country – sometimes as
fully-loaded 18-wheelers. Bob
Singer was primarily responsible for this enormous effort, utilizing his
warehouse space, colleagues, and trucks to move these goods to shelters
and others in need.
- We partnered often with the Jewish
community of Westchester county, NY (NYC suburbs). Among our many projects:
o
Helping distribute an 18-wheeler of new goods
at the FEMA trailer villages. We also
participated in several smaller donations at trailer villages with Westchester,
4-5 times, in all.
o
A photography project for children, “Kids with
Cameras.” This also led to exhibitions
with the children and their families at the LSU Art Gallery and a NYC
gallery.
o
We took them on numerous tours of the
hurricane aftermath in Baton Rouge & New Orleans, meeting with community
leaders in the Jewish & general communities. We also worked at the BR Food Bank with
them.
- Many items for
individuals, always with the aim of helping people establish
themselves, rather than simple maintenance. For instance, furniture for people
moving into new housing, disability aids for people who had lost them in
the storm, etc.
- We assisted with two annual Christmas
gift give-aways for evacuee children, in partnership with State Rep.
Regina Ashford Barrow. She
presented the congregation with a declaration of appreciation from the
State Legislature.
- We donated $2,000 each to the 3 New Orleans synagogues that sustained the most flood
damage: Congregation Beth Israel, Congregation Gates of Prayer, and Shir
Chadash Conservative Congregation.
- The committee did some work developing emergency contingency plans for the Congregation. These included phone lists of service
providers, stockpiling supplies, working with the Federation to develop
lists of vulnerable community members we could check in on. We feel these efforts were not
completely successful for a variety of reasons.
- We are close to wrapping
up our activities. We have
about $2,500 of still-uncommitted funds remaining in our account, after
initial resources of about $115,000.
These people have
been committee members over the life of the committee:
- Rick Weil, chair
- Esther Sachse, first co-chair
- Bob Singer, first co-chair
- Lisa Binder, treasurer
- Dana Berkowitz
- Lauren Bombet
- Daphne Cain
- Ann Cicero
- Wendy Herschman
- Bette Levine
- Jill Roby
- Marc Samuels
We thank the Synagogue
Board, past and current Presidents, Victor Sachse, Don Meltzer, and Robbie
Rubin, past and current Rabbis Barry Weinstein, Corie Yutkin, and their
families, Synagogue Administrator Vickie Sessions, past and current Federation
Executive Directors, Rabbi Martha Bergadine and Ellen Sager, and Jewish Family
Service Leaders Kay Radlauer and Celia Vine, for all their great help and support of
the committee’s work.
|