The New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America had 600 members in the MassMutual Center for a convention just days after the tornadoes.
WEST SPRINGFIELD – Mid-Hudson Promotions only calls West Springfield home four times a year when the company hosts the Antique & Modern Firearm Show at the Eastern States Exposition grounds.
But one of those four weekends was June 4 and 5, just days after tornadoes cut a devastating swath through Western Massachusetts. One of the hardest-hit neighborhoods was the Merrick section of West Springfield, located right across the street from the Big E.
Mid-Hudson Promotions and patrons at the show teamed up to raise $1,728 for tornado relief.
“We’ve run shows there for 20 years,” said Carole Chittenden, show manager for Mid-Hudson, which is headquartered in Westchester County, N.Y. “Folks there have always been very good to us.”
They aren’t the only convention and tourism-related group or business to help with tornado relief – horse shows, the New England Genealogists, the New England Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have all helped, said Mary Kay Wydra, president of the Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The New England Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators won’t even meet in Springfield until April 2012, but the group is donating money to a local elementary school that lost its library to the tornadoes, Wydra said.
“There is this connection to our community from these outside groups,” Wydra said. “I’m just so touched by it.”
She said the fact that groups from outside the area feel such a strong connection speaks well to the way visitors are treated at the attractions, hotels, restaurants and convention venues here in the Pioneer Valley.
“They feel a family connection,” she said. “I’m so touched by it.”
The morning after the tornadoes hit, Wydra said she and her staff checked with major attractions like Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Six Flags New England in Agawam and Yankee Candle in South Deerfield just to make sure those places were up and running and doing business.
Tourism is big business in the region , Wydra said.
Statewide, tourism brings in $14 billion a year to Massachusetts, according to state estimates.
The Lutherans had planed to incorporate public service with their meeting June 3-5 in Springfield even before the storm hit, said the Rev. Alice Kerr Laird, associate to the bishop.
They’d been planning for months to bring 600 people to the MassMutal Center. It’s the first time the group’s annual meeting has been in Springfield.
Once the storms hit, they quickly collected a truckload of food for the Food Bank of Western New England.
“All we needed was the assurance from the venues and the mayor’s office that it was still safe to come,” Laird said. “We were concerned that if we pulled out it would have a negative impact on local businesses.”
Some place where Lutheran conventioneers had planned to work were inaccessible because of the storm. But church members were able to unload food at the food bank, sing in area nursing homes, cook meals and make a garden at the Friends of the Homeless, she said.
This synod meeting had always been designed around a theme of putting faith in action through public service.
“What it showed is that God can use us in ways we could never have imagined,” Laird said. “It really did remind us that when things happen, we can adjust or increase our energies.”
The Lutherans hope to return.
“It was so powerful this year,” Laird said.