A week later, “Monson Tornado Watch 2011” on Facebook has 2,000 members and is a whirlwind of activity. Volunteers are offering their services, and others are advertising what’s needed to help the community recover.
Monson graduate Laura Sauriol, center, created a Facebook page to keep people informed after a June 1 tornado struck the town. Laura Sauriol was crouched in her Bunyan Road basement, waiting for the tornado to pass, when she started a Facebook group that would become the go-to website for the relief effort in Monson.
Never mind that she is only 17, and that parts of her town were pummeled by the tornadoes that raced through Western and Central Massachusetts in the late afternoon of June 1.
With no access to telephones, the Internet became a resource, and her friends began posting tornado updates – where it struck, the hardest-hit areas, if loved ones were OK.
A week later, “Monson Tornado Watch 2011” on Facebook has 2,000 members and is a whirlwind of activity. Volunteers are offering their services, and others are advertising what’s needed to help the community recover.
Sauriol isn’t the only person who has seized the power of social media to help in tornado-relief efforts.
The United Way of the Pioneer Valley has been using a Facebook page and its own website – www.uwpv.org – to line up volunteers with ways they can help across the region.
The Pioneer Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross is using its Facebook page, which it had long before the tornadoes struck, to provide regular daily updates on its relief efforts, and the Realtor Association of the Pioneer Valley (“West Springfield: RAPV Tornado Relief” and “16 acres: RAPV Tornado Relief”) launched a humanitarian effort to rebuild and find housing for tornado victims across the region.
Karen King, of the Karen King Group at ReMax Prestige, lives in Monson, and began the Facebook page, “Monson Homes available for Tornado Victims,” to help connect her neighbors who lost their homes with new housing. She has helped 11 families find new places to live.
Then, additional Realtors’ association Facebook pages were added, she said. “All the Realtors are getting together to do what they can for the affected families,” King said.
Even a mother in Chicopee has tapped into the popularity of social media to draw attention to her children’s neighborhood lemonade stand that’s raising funds for the tornado relief effort.
Scott Niejadlik, 30, of Boston, created “Central Mass Tornado Recovery” on Facebook. He is a Brimfield native, whose parents Eileen and Paul, still live there. The tornado missed their home, but passed less than an eighth of a mile away.
He started his Facebook page right after the June 1 storm.
“Basically, I said, ‘My parents are fine, but so many of my friends and their families have been devastated,’” Niejadlik said. “It’s kind of heartbreaking, even from the standpoint of not having anything lost personally.”
Niejadlik, a Web developer, drove to his hometown on June 2 to help with cleanup efforts. His mother was on Haynes Hill Road earlier this week, helping residents of that road, which was right in the tornado’s path.
She said people need storage bins and boxes so they could pack their belongings out of their ravaged homes. The need for storage bins was echoed on the Facebook page.
Niejadlik has been trying to balance his work demands with the need in Brimfield, and has been driving back and forth frequently. The site is catching on with approximately 350 members.
Like the Monson Facebook page, his page lets volunteers sign up to help, informs about where to donate and gives recommendations for credible tree removal companies.
Niejadlik says his effort was even amazingly able to reunite a family photograph, found all the way in Southbridge, with a Brimfield family who lost nearly everything.
“So far it seems to be working out pretty well,” he said. “I’m going to keep (the site) up as long as it keeps being needed.”
One post on “Monson Tornado Watch 2011” last week featured a request for help to spruce up a vacant home at 51 Stafford Road to make room for a family who lost everything.
Another asked where the drop-off point was for donations. (It’s at the First Church of Monson). Yet another made a plea to help the people of Springfield – new underwear was especially needed.
Still one more post came from someone who volunteered to house-sit an empty home to scare off looters.
There are sections devoted to “give away” items, for things like cribs and appliances which people no longer need and are willing to donate. There also is a list where people can add their names to a volunteer index.
Sauriol, who graduated from Monson High School on Wednesday night, said the social network quickly grew among her friends. She added her mother, Jo, to the group, and it grew even more, showing the power of social networking.
Her mother also helps with updating the site as it gets hundreds of posts a day.
“At this point, it’s growing from word-of-mouth,” Sauriol said.
She said she wasn’t thinking about the potential of the Facebook group when she created it, and was just trying to find out information.
“Everyone was concerned about everyone else,” Sauriol said. “We’re a small community and everyone helps each other.”
Soon, the First Church, which lost its steeple to the tornado, became the central meeting place for volunteers, meals and information. Sauriol said a little girl from Palmer brought all her toys to help the people in Monson.
“I plan on at least doing it for the rest of the month,” said Sauriol, adding if there is a need for the site, she will continue it past that date.
She thinks it caught on so quickly because she responded to questions immediately after the tornado disaster. She wasn’t expecting such a response.
“I guess you could say I was surprised,” Sauriol said.
Sauriol said a lot of people ask her questions directly through the site about the recovery efforts; others call her house. They say they are surprised when they find out her age.
She plans to attend Westfield State University in the fall, and while she was thinking about studying physical therapy and business, this experience has caused her to now consider management.
Her efforts haven’t gone unnoticed by her Facebook followers.
Group member Teri Sullivan Galica wrote to President Barack Obama about Sauriol, and the letter is posted on the Facebook page.
“I am writing to you today to bring to your attention an amazing young lady, Laura Sauriol,” Galica wrote. “After a tornado hit our hometown of Monson, Massachusetts, Laura immediately created a Facebook page initially so that people could check and see if others were okay. Her Facebook page over the last week, Monson Tornado Watch 2011, has turned into the page where all town residents and residents of other towns can go to see what is needed and where volunteers are necessary.”
“We say so many negative things about our young people today; you need to know about the citizens of this age that give back without any expectations of anything in return,” the letter added. “With people like Laura Sauriol in our world, it is going to be an amazing ‘next generation’ of young people.”