Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund

Two years ago on October 29, Hurricane Sandy struck parts of the United States and the Caribbean.  While some have been able to recover and return to their normal lives, many are still trying to piece back what used to be of their lives. GlobalGiving, as well as our partner organizations working to help these Hurricane Sandy victims, would like to send our warmest gratitude for your continued support over these years!

Architecture for Humanity has been on the recovery scene for the Tri-State area two years out from Hurricane Sandy. They have been able to support and provide resources to more property owners, organizations, and municipalities to create sustainable, adapted, resilient, and timeless homes, businesses, and communities.  Architecture for Humanity has been able to collaborate with new partner organizations to work towards their common goal: assist the people who live and work around New York City and the Tri-State area to create a more resilient network of communities for generations to come.

Prior to the devastation of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Baby Buggy was primarily focused on providing essential items for impoverished families in the New York City area. With Hurricane Sandy affecting many of the families in their programs, Baby Buggy was able to shift some of their gears to tremendously help those already vulnerable families to rebuild their lives. They have been able to provide air purifiers and air mattresses to families whose homes were flooded and covered in mold,  provide school supplies and clothing to children in Early Head Start programs who were finally able to return to new classrooms after years of rebuilding, and supply diapers to newborns whose first time moms lost everything in the storm. Baby Buggy has made a conscious effort to remind the communities that they work in that the survivors of the storm will not be forgotten as they take time to recover from the disaster.

Global Links has been working in Santiago, Cuba in order to provide additional support and funding to improve the healthcare infrastructure as the town continues to recover from Hurricane Sandy. Their focus has been on supplying the operating rooms with anesthesia machines and surgical beds, providing patient wards with beds and mattresses and bringing microscopes and testing equipment to their labs. They have already made plans to continue this improvement process in order to have a long term, sustainable solution for healthcare.

The holiday season is not only the season of giving, but also a time to give thanks. We thank you for your generous donations as we support the recovery work that continues in the areas affected by Hurricane Sandy. Happy Holidays!

As the skies darken and the wind picks up, those of us on the East Coast of the U.S. can’t help but have the unsettling feeling that hurricane season is setting in again. It’s been almost two years since Hurricane Sandy whipped along the Atlantic seaboard, leaving devastation and destruction in its wake, and even though most of the physical scars have healed, families are still trying to stitch together lives and livelihoods fragmented by the storm. But they aren’t alone, because they’ve had help from you. Some may have lost houses, others a family member, but throughout they’ve gotten support from a global community of friends they didn’t even know they had.

Thanks to the support of wonderful donors like you, the Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund at GlobalGiving has been able to support a variety of ongoing recovery and reconstruction projects.

Baby Buggy continues to provide clothing, food, school supplies, and furniture to support families that are still struggling with the loss of housing and employment in the wake of the storm. In their progress reports, Baby Buggy shared the story of the Davis family, who lost both their jobs and everything they owned when Sandy hit New York City. While searching for steady employment and housing, the Davis family stayed at a Brooklyn shelter for nearly two years, but commuted over an hour each way to bring their five children back to their old schools where the older kids could remain with their friends and their youngest could continue the special needs program he was enrolled in. While they were in the shelter, Baby Buggy was able to provide the Davis family with food, clothing, toiletries, and baby supplies, and helped them search for a new apartment – where they moved in this spring!

Baby Buggy has also helped a long-time partner, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY), rebuild in the wake of the storm. VNSNY runs both an early head start program and a fatherhood program. When the VNSNY building was destroyed during the hurricane, teachers and administrators came to the site even in the loss of their own homes and goods to figure out how they could provide immediate relief to families in the area. With the help of Baby Buggy, VNSNY was able to provide essential goods to families in the area at the time, and now fifteen months later, open a new center where they can continue to provide social services.  The silver lining to those storm clouds? The new center has room for VNSNY to serve even more families than before, as the old center only had room for 75 children and the new center has room for 185! Even in the wake of this terrible storm, we can see the unifying power of natural disasters as communities and nonprofits work together to provide relief and rebuild.

Hurricane Sandy wrecked more than homes and amusement parks: it also caused a huge spike in the cases of cholera in communities struck by the hurricane, as well as destroying the hospitals and medicines that allow doctors to fight the disease. This relief fund also supported two projects outside the United States – one in Haiti, and the other in Cuba – that are still supplying critical medical supplies to physicians trying to lessen the spread of the disease and care for afflicted patients. The Vice-Director of Global Link’s project in Cuba said in a recent project report, “The health care kits you sent us were invaluable.” She explained that all the hospitals they visited highlighted the importance of these kits, which, complete with gloves and face masks, allow doctors to care for patients without getting infected themselves or exacerbating the spread of the disease. She shared a story of a visit she undertook with a doctor to educate a remote community on disease prevention techniques, when they were asked to examine an old man thought to be suffering from cholera. The Vice-Director and the young doctor were many miles away from a nearby hospital, and while cholera patients cannot spare hours, the two couldn’t care or even examine the man without protective material. As they “stood outside the house pondering possibilities that would allow the doctor to enter the house without putting her life at risk,” the Vice-Director realized that she had a healthcare kit in the back of the car – which allowed the doctor to give care to the patient without contracting the disease herself.

So even while our skies darken and the wind picks up again, we can’t help but feel hopeful and thankful for all that light that has poured through these clouds thanks to donors like you. Because of you, those with cholera in Haiti and Cuba continue to receive help, and a new and improved family center was able to rise from the ashes of the previous one. Please consider continuing to support these projects as they provide support for communities still reeling from the effects of the storm, and we wish you a wonderful, safe end to your summer!

Links:

• Donate to the Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund