Community leaders say there is a solid foundation of people united to aid in the rebuilding effort.
Danielle LaTaille, social services director for the Salvation Army in Springfield, fills orders for families in need.‘Together. We heal. We rebuild.”
A simple message in a difficult time.
The billboards for all to see along Interstate 91 in downtown Springfield are an effort to provide hope and instill confidence that Western Massachusetts will rebuild from the devastation of the June 1 tornadoes.
In the business of caring for the community’s health and wellness for more than a century, the Sisters of Providence Health System turned to some of the city’s most prominent airspace to let residents and passers-by alike know this region may be down, but it’s not out; it was also intended as a message of faith for the future rebuilding effort, says Mark Fulco, vice president of strategy and marketing.
“It’s intended to lift the spirits of the Greater Springfield community and remind us better days are ahead,” said Fulco. “This is a time for healing and rebuilding. We are a resilient community, and together we will bounce back.”
The message underscores the massive community effort in the tornadoes’ wake that has evolved into one of the region’s largest disaster-relief and fund-raising efforts ever.
“I’ve just witnessed this amazing outpouring of support and compassion and commitment with individuals and our business partners just helping out in the best way people can,” said Dora Robinson, chief executive officer of the Pioneer Valley United Way. “While I’m not surprised, I’m sort of awed by it. When situations occur in our lives and the lives of our neighbors, friends and colleagues, people respond.”
Minutes after the first tornado had touched down in West Springfield and crossed the Connecticut River into Springfield’s South End, the staff at the MassMutual Center welcomed a group of little children, escorted by police from its devastated Square One daycare center right down Main Street, into safety. Staff members never missed a beat as they proceeded with plans for that night’s Minnechaug Regional High School prom, an event that school officials and students were intent would go on despite the tornadoes.
In the span of one week, the Pioneer Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross received donations and pledges of nearly $1 million; and disaster volunteers from Red Cross chapters across New England and the nation descended on Western Massachusetts to help. The $1 million mark has since come and gone.
The United Way of the Pioneer Valley took on the task of coordinating volunteers and rallied help, both human and financial, for the cause. The United Way’s board of directors immediately made a $25,000 grant, issuing a challenge for it to be matched. It was.
The Salvation Army and Catholic Charities went into action; so, too, did the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and scores of other non-profit agencies across the region.
The business community rose to the occasion, from corporate leaders like MassMutual and Hasbro, which each donated $100,000, to one-man operations who took to the road to help neighbors clear debris and trees, from virtually every bank in the region to Big Y Foods where members of the D’Amour family made individual contributions as well as promised their stores would serve as rallying points for donations of funds and goods to help victims.
Kiddly Winks, a toy store in Longmeadow, was working to ensure the youngest victims would find something to smile about by gathering toys and art supplies to distribute. By Wednesday afternoon, owner Joy Leavitt was piloting a van filled with donations for distribution to children in Springfield and West Springfield who were impacted by the tornadoes.
“This isn’t the end of it; this will be an ongoing process. It’s who we are, what we do as a community,” said Leavitt. She said loyal customers, vendors and other businesses helped make her company’s donation possible.
Jose Santos of The Food Bank delivers nine pallets of food to the Springfield Partners for Community Action on State Street in Springfield on June 3. In the workplaces of victims, their coworkers rallied; at Baystate Health System where five employees lost their homes and hundreds of workers’ families were impacted by the storms, a “Caring for Colleagues” fund raised thousands of dollars.
In communities untouched, like Chicopee and South Hadley, schoolchildren set up lemonade stands and held fund-raisers; at the Hampshire County House of Correction, an inmate from Springfield started a fund for those incarcerated to help victims.
In Monson, the First Church, which just six months earlier had been devastated by a fire, became a beacon of hope as its members set aside individual concerns to help their neighbors even as the tornado there knocked its steeple to the ground and ravaged the entire town.
Ted Sisley, one of the coordinators of the massive volunteer effort at the First Church of Monson, said he has been amazed at the response that includes some who have lost their own homes. People from across the region, including New Hampshire and Vermont, are coming to the church to help.
“I just can’t believe the spirit of all the people,“ Sisley said.
In Brimfield, Gina M. Lynch, the senior center director and wife of the Rev. Ian Lynch, pastor of the First Congregational Church, is overseeing the volunteer effort at the church on the common. The church is now filled with donated items for the tornado victims. Three meals are served there a day; there are also social workers on hand, computers to use, and Wifi access.
“I have some amazing volunteers,” Lynch said, adding she wasn’t surprised by the overwhelming volunteer response. “I know what a community can do when asked. I know there are wonderful people out there.”
And, in the Merrick neighborhood of West Springfield, where two people were killed, one of them a mother who died protecting her teenaged daughter as their tenement collapsed around them, the “good-neighbor” policy played out, too, as the Eastern States Exposition responded to Mayor Edward Gibson’s plea for help. The exposition worked feverishly to convert its 4-H dormitories from an off-season storage area to temporary home for displaced residents.
“It’s always been our philosophy to be a good neighbor in the community; this was really instantaneous,” said Wayne McCary, president of the exposition. “When the chips are down, good neighbors always step up. (It was a matter of) what could Eastern States do to lessen the pain for these families, our neighbors, who have lost everything they have.”
McCary is among those who believe the overwhelming community response is indicative of the very heart of what America is all about.
“It really represents the spirit of Americans,” McCary said. “People in America have always stepped up when there is a crisis; our region has proved to be no exception.”
Brenda Brouillette knows that spirit well. She’s worked for the Pioneer Valley Red Cross for a decade, much of it spent overseeing the chapter’s corps of disaster volunteers and now as deputy director.
“I’ve been on diaster-relief efforts before, but it’s truly much harder when it’s in your own back yard. You have to deal with all the emotion of it being right there in the community, the places you love and the places you’ve been, too,” said Brouillette, who lives in Palmer and grew up in the Monson area.
“The last two weeks have been so chaotic and hectic but rewarding at the same time,” Brouillette said, reflecting on the “real roller-coaster ride” the Red Cross chapter has taken in the wake of the tornadoes.
“We always felt we had a very strong chapter and great volunteers,” she said. “This has really taxed all of our resources, even though we thought we were prepared. We have realized how valuable our partners are, and we need to keep moving forward in building on that.”
One of Brouillette’s most moving moments came, she said, when she addressed a group in the Holy Cross gymnasium in East Forest Park on the weekend of June 11 and 12, only to get a shout-out from the crowd saying, “Red Cross rocks!”
“It’s been so rewarding to be connected with the Red Cross. Although we’ve had peaks and valleys (over the past two weeks) and haven’t done everything perfectly, it’s our volunteers – from all over New England and from as far away as Florida – who make it special,” said Brouillette.
At the United Way, Robinson said she began receiving calls about how her agency would handle response to the tornadoes by the time dawn broke on June 2. She lives in East Forest Park, but was fortunate to be in a small pocket of streets in her neighborhood that escaped the storm’s wrath.
“I had no idea at first that (the damage) was so extensive in certain neighborhoods,” Robinson recalled. “Once we left our offices and went into the community, over the next couple of days, we determined our most important role was coordinating volunteer efforts.”
Tapping into its already existing 2-1-1 statewide emergency help network, the United Way worked to relieve the Red Cross and other agencies, such as the Salvation Army and the food bank, from the burden of tasking volunteers to jobs and coordinating the gathering of goods, food and services to help victims.
For some, the next steps in recovery and rebuilding will be difficult ones, but not insurmountable, community representatives say.
Brouillette said she had an epiphany as Week 3 began; “On Monday night, our (out-of-state) volunteers were all talking about their last days (here) and when they’d be going home to Maine and Florida. I went home and was literallly sick to my stomach, thinking they’re leaving and going back to their normal lives,” she said. “What will normal be for us? Our normal has changed for the foreseeable future. Our point of reference for what’s normal has changed.”
Robinson, who has lived in Greater Springfield for close to 30 years and worked for several non-profit agencies, says there’s no doubt in her mind that Springfield and the region will rebound.
“I am so impressed and affirmed that again, when a situation occurs, people will rise to the occasion, the leadership, the busness community, the common residents are truly responding to this,” she said. “As we make a transition from emergency response to recovery, we’re all committed.”
The rebuilding effort may take time, “but at the end of the day, I think we’re going to have a stronger community,” Robinson added