Occupy Sandy

On Saturday, I still had not heard from any of my volunteer organizations to help with Hurricane Sandy relief. This was good, because so many people were willing to help, I think they were just inundated with people. That's probably how I ended up in the frigid city Saturday night having dinner with a friend on the Upper West Side with a lot of chianti and slept in Sunday, but woke up in time to check out the interwebs and find an organization called Occupy Sandy working out of a church in Brooklyn that still needed help. It was just the thing I had been waiting for. After a hearty breakfast and coffee, I was on my way to Sunset Park via what became a very long and convoluted 3-train trek to the Brooklyn locale.

I was excited to dig out a t-shirt to wear from previous rebuilding trips, like Mexico, Guatemala or Katrina, but when I came across a faded brown I ♥ NY shirt, of course I had to wear that. And I do heart New York! What a great community here. There are always ways to be involved and have a piece of the city.

So I thought that this group just had a clever name (Occupy Sandy) but turns out that they are actually part of the Occupy movement. Lulz. No problems here. When I arrived, it wasn't hard to find with the masses of people and yelling of directives and the structured chaos. You can really tell it was a community undertaking and group effort with the cardboard signs and makeshift tables. I think that's my favorite part. You don't need to be anything special to get things done in your community.

After a short orientation, we were directed across the street to be directed what to do. The first thing they had for a handful of people to do was unload a car, but when 10 people went over, I took one load of bags and was waiting for direction again. I've done enough of these to know sometimes you can just go and jump in, and even though I was prepared to do damage reconstruction in the Rockaways, I was eager to help right away instead of waiting on a possible convoy, so I went down into the distribution center. I saw someone giving directions and asked him how I could help.

"Are you good at managing things? Can you give directions? Have you ever worked in a restaurant?"

"Um, sure."

"Okay, shadow me for 15 minutes. I'm going home and you will take over. You're about to be Food Prep Floor Manager."

And that's how I found myself as the Food Prep Floor Manager for the rest of the night.

When my "training" was done and we shook hands and thanked each other and he put my name on the board, I turned to tables of autonomous food makers, the cold food prep and the kitchen, all furious worker bees in their respective hives, and the only image that came to mind was this:

But, people needed answers and by God I was going to get them for them. I didn't work at Sushi Deli 2 in San Diego for nothing. All my training had come to this afternoon and I was not going to let them down! I jumped in and before I could slow down, we were wrapping up and it was already past 8pm.

The distribution center was a well-oiled bicycle. I'm not sure it was up to machine standards, but who can care when all these people simply showed up just to help? The best part was everyone's great attitudes and willingness to do whatever necessary and take directives joyfully.

These were clothes stations of people sorting all the clothes and blankets that we were receiving, to be sent out to Staten Island, Coney Island, and the Rockaways as fast as we could

See the girl in the gray longsleeve under a brown shirt with the purse around her side and her jacket hanging off of it? Oh hey, that's me. That was me when I was wandering in and looking for something to do, and approached the food stations.

A last minute Uhaul shipment came in, and this is an assembly line of volunteers bringing everything down

The canned food station

After the hot food was prepared, packaged and labeled, we sent them out right away for dinners in the Rockaways. Our chef was a real chef from a Brooklyn restaurant

More than enough peanut butter and jelly for sandwiches for lunch. Our teams also made tuna sandwiches, and ham & cheese sandwiches, but we had to finish those that day since our fridge space was limited

My roommate and I rode the train home together, completely exhausted, after a hard day of work. He actually had been helping since Thursday, so he had more to be tired over than me, but it was still a lot of being on your feet and moving around.

I'm going back out tonight to help with administrative stuff since I work all day. I enjoy serving communities and taking part in these sorts of efforts, I wish it were easier to do on a full time basis.