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.