This post is dedicated to the people down on the coast helping Hurricane Ian survivors. I first published another version of this essay back in 2006.
Tonight, I am thinking about the people who drop what they are doing to help others who are badly in need of help. The thousands of people who have poured down to the Gulf Coast in the wake of the devastation rendered by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita share something special. They all cared enough to show up.
One of the leaders of an especially effective grassroots group down there told me in January that was his definition of being qualified to help in a disaster -- "showing up."
These volunteers have various motivations. Some may be religious. Some may have much-needed skills. Some may be running away from life up here, as opposed to running toward embracing life down there.
None of that really matters. They showed up.
Some may be fragile in ways no one down there could know. They may have come from somewhere else to the scene of disaster to help, discovering in the process something essential about what is going on in their own lives so that they might go forward with a better defined sense of purpose.
These are among the heroes I celebrate tonight.
My article about volunteers — “Everything’s Broken” in Salon helped inspire the founding of Great NonProfits.
LINKS:
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