Bucks
Annsi Stephano & Tina Shaffer help with Katrina Relief
Dear friends,
Good morning. The column I wrote about Boyce Budd last July came to mind as I interviewed Tina Shaffer and Annsi Stephano, two residents of Springfield and Solebury Townships. You readers will remember Budd’s humanitarian odyssey to New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina.
Shaffer and Stephano are grandmothers but they aren’t the type that sit around in rocking chairs. Possessed with plenty of courage and pep, these women decided to plunge head first into the Katrina disaster. Shaffer and Stephano have been friends for 20 years. They’ve worked together on Planned Parenthood and League of Women Voters projects for decades.
The two women spent more than a week between Christmas and New Year’s in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the city’s worst hit section. And it is the poorest.
“We thought about these people trying to rebuild New Orleans,” Shaffer began. “Their trauma would be even worse because it was the holiday season. Besides, we had no plans for the New Year’s [celebration].”
“Before the hurricane, the population of the Ninth Ward was 60,000,” Stephano told me. “Today, it’s just 10,000. The estimates are that half of the population of New Orleans has returned, but in the Ninth Ward, only 20 percent have [returned].”
“Everyone has a story,” Shaffer continued. “Whether a shop owner whose house was literally blown away, or a middle class family from the lovely Lakeview area where ten feet of water submerged a golf course as well as the homes, or a low-income family who’d lived in the Ninth Ward for generations, they survived and they want to rebuild.
“Sixteen months after the hurricane, much of the area remains devastated and empty,” Shaffer added, “but trash has been removed and rebuilding is slowly starting…so slowly that residents risk becoming victims a third time.
The first disaster was the hurricanes. The next disaster was the inept response of three levels of government. And the one they are facing now is time. Months of bureaucratic and political wrangling by those in power have held up distribution of financial resources and threatens to exhaust the saving and health of those at their mercy.”
And that’s the point.
Louisiana has had a reputation for corruption for centuries. There is plenty of New Orleans' elite who’d be delighted if the poor people of the Ninth Ward would simply disappear. How else would you explain why FEMA housing trailers were prohibited from entry into the Ninth Ward? Why? Because the city had to provide safe water to the Ninth Ward first…and water was not forthcoming.
The two women became volunteers for ACORN, an acronym for Association of Community Organization for Reform Now. “ACORN was right in the thick of things from the beginning,” Stephano told me. “Local families…those without voices…weren’t getting help from the city. ACORN helps people who pledge that they will return to New Orleans and will occupy their homes. ACORN prevented the city from bull dozing the poorest districts of New Orleans.”
Shaffer and Stephano wore head-to-toe “Tyvek” suits to protect them against toxic materials as they worked in the disabled houses. They were equipped with respirators with filter pads and goggles whenever they were inside the structures. ACORN converted a school bus for a kitchen.
The two women provided a list of organizations that would be overjoyed to have you volunteer. They are:
Bucks-Mont Katrina Project- www.bucksmontkatrinaproject.org
ACORN- www.acorn.org (click on ACORN Gift Registry for Home Depot donations.)
Common Ground Relief- www.commongroundrelief.org
Habitat for Humanity,
The Green Project- www.thegreenproject.org
Volunteer Match- www.volunteermatch.org/volunteers
Rebuilding Together - www.rebuildingwithcountrywide.org (202-483-9083)
and Mennonite Disaster Service- http://mds.Mennonite.net (800-241-8111)
“Sixty percent of the buildings in
“They are planning for it and working for it, and the American spirit can help make it happen,” She said. “To me, those eight days were like being in a crucible for democracy. This was a disaster, but now Americans have an opportunity to step forth and do something right.”
You can reach Shaffer and Stephano at: mcshaffer@verizon.net
“There should be a Marshall Plan going on down there,” Shaffer concluded. “It was empowering for us 60-year-old grandmothers,” Stephano quipped. Will they return to New Orleans for more work? You bet they will.
Sincerely,
Charles Meredith