Help for the most affected Ferguson neighborhoods is pouring in
FERGUSON • The residents of Canfield Green and their neighbors started lining up at the drop-in help center on West Florissant Avenue at 5 a.m. Thursday.
“By 9 a.m., we had over 250 people there, and we didn’t even open until 10,” said Regina Greer, an organizer of the Community Resource Drop-In Center and the vice president for community response for the United Way of Greater St. Louis.
“Everybody was coming for basic needs,” she said. Food. Health care. Counseling. Help with utility bills.
“There’s a great demand, and we’re seeing as many people as we can,” she said. By the end of the day, that amounted to hundreds of people.
There has been an outpouring of government, private and individual support, and much of it comes from within Ferguson — neighborhood churches, people in the municipality who care about what some of the poorer neighbors are agonizing through.
Nurses and doctors are going door-to-door in the most directly affected areas. Groups from churches such as Friendly Temple Baptist Church are providing transportation or gathering food — and delivering it.
Volunteers were handing out water and food in the streets near where businesses were looted amid protests over the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a city police officer.
The largest focal point of support is at the Dellwood Recreation Center, where the United Way, St. Louis County government, the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis and others have set up their base at the drop-in center. They’re providing food, children’s activities and an array of resources and services. Even the Cardinals’ mascot Fredbird showed up at the center Thursday.
Others at the center are Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater St. Louis, Community Action Agency of St. Louis County, Girls Inc., Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, St. Louis Area Foodbank and Society of St. Vincent de Paul — and the list is growing. The Salvation Army and Red Cross are providing hot meals.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/help-for-the-most-affected-ferguson-neighborhoods-is-pouring-in/article_8bdc1ddf-e88d-54a5-a3b4-c396a5287f1f.html
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. . . there is a need for the aid.
The poverty rate doubled in the past decade, and the demand for basic resources is that much higher in this siege, no matter where you view the source. You may have missed the effort to provide lunches to children who have been unable to return to their closed schools and the makeshift classes held yesterday in libraries and elsewhere.
The Ferguson-Florissant School District, which serves 11,000 students, has delayed the start of school until Aug. 25. Students are missing out on classes, and a new federal program that is slated to give free lunch to all students, The Washington Post reported. To help feed kids in need, a North Carolina public school teacher launched a Fundly campaign -- which has raised more than $130,000 -- and 100 percent of the proceeds will be donated to the St. Louis Area Foodbank . . .
More than 30 businesses have suffered damage amid the (looting and vandalism) in Ferguson. Owners say they are struggling to stay open and fear they won’t be able to recoup the loss of stolen goods and destruction to their stores, the Washington Times reported. To help small businesses move forward, the St. Louis Regional Business Council launched a fund to support proprietors who have been affected by the unrest, St. Louis Biz Talk reported.
Together with the United Way of the Greater St. Louis, the St. Louis Area Foodbank donated 5,000 pounds of food to people in need on Saturday alone. Considering that about one in four people in the area live below the poverty line, and the cost of the recovery efforts are just getting underway, the group’s work is far from over.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/20/how-to-help-ferguson-_n_5694923.html
Teacher Raises More Than $100,000 to Feed Ferguson Students
The chaos in Ferguson, Missouri, has pushed the start date for the district’s public schools from Aug. 14 to Monday, Aug. 25, leaving many reduced-priced or free lunch students and their families struggling to make ends meet.
But amidst of the uproar and crazy video footage surfacing out of Ferguson, comes some good news for local residents, as one North Carolina teacher has raised more than $100,000 to help feed the local students.
“When I found out school had been canceled for several days as a result of civil unrest, I immediately became worried for the students in households with food instability,” says public school teacher Julianna Mendelsohn, who started the campaign.
Ferguson is a school district where 68% of its students rely on free or reduced lunch, so a campaign such as Mendelsohn’s is definitely right on time. All donations from the fund will go directly to the St. Louis Area Foodbank in hope that assistance will be provided for every student in need of food.
Ferguson: People unite to meet children's needs, from food to counseling
“Food pantries are getting bare,” says Pastor Joe Costephens of Passage Community Church in Florissant, which borders Ferguson. His church has worked with others to clean up the streets at night after demonstrations, and now they’re organizing a food and school-supplies drive.
By coincidence, Ferguson’s First Baptist Church had already planned a big community block party months ago for this Saturday afternoon. So food and supplies will be distributed to families there.
Hungry kids were also on the mind of Julianna Mendelsohn, a teacher in Raleigh, N.C., who heard about school being canceled for two days and realized a lot of Ferguson kids could be dependent on school meals for most of their daily nutrition.
On Wednesday night, she set up a Fundly.com fundraising site and spread the word on Twitter with #FeedtheStudents and #FeedFerguson, thinking she could raise a few hundred dollars. By early Friday afternoon, she was preparing to send just over $39,000 to the St. Louis Area Foodbank, which will coordinate the volunteers she attracted to help distribute the food to families in the Ferguson area.
“I'm blown away by how generosity and social media have created this,” Ms. Mendelsohn says. Events in Ferguson started because of a “polarized issue,” she says, “but anyone with half a heart would see the kids had nothing to do with this and need to be taken care of.”
___Members of the NAACP are here dropping off food and water for residents.
"A lot of people have had trouble getting out of here," says John Gaskin of the St. Louis County chapter of the NAACP. "Many of the people that live in this area don't have cars; as you can see, many of the more accessible stores — like the convenient marts — are closed because of the looting."
Billy Bragg, known worldwide for speaking out against human-rights violations and bigotry, deciding to stop in St. Louis as he made his way south to Arkansas on a photography tour of the old Rock Island Line railroad path for Aperture magazine.
Several performances over the next week are planned, but Bragg and fellow guitarist Joe Purdy already have made a habit of impulsively playing where they've felt moved to do so, such as outside a school in Illinois where teachers were striking for better pay. St. Louis was just such an impulse stop.
"Yesterday, I tweeted from Rock Island [Illinois] about where I should go, and people from here and Britain reminded me that St. Louie wasn't far," Bragg said. "It's not just people here that care about Ferguson. We saw a demonstration of a dozen people walk past our hotel in Rock Island."
Bragg then said that he contacted his friend Karl Haglund, an artist who paints canvases of iconic guitars, about where he might perform. Upon advice from Magnolia Summer's Chris Grabau, Haglund suggested the Royale and put Bragg into contact with owner Steven Smith. The performance was announced on Twitter and Facebook 30 minutes later, with Smith using the show as a way to rally up bins of toiletries, food, school supplies and first-aid kids from the 100 or so people attending -- all donations that would be distributed in Ferguson through St. Stephen's Episcopal Church.
Moved by the night's emotion, Bragg continued. "I was trying to think of a song I could play for this tonight. There's an old song I know from the civil-rights days, written in 1968, but it may have some resonance now. You have a great weight to resolve this in a peaceable and transparent way, and you have our support." Bragg and Purdy then began harmonizing on "Cryin' in the Streets," punctuating the line "I see people marching in the streets" with a powerful "Yeah!" and growing louder throughout the song.
At the end of the night, Bragg ceded the floor to Royale owner Smith, who emphasized that showing solidarity with the people of Ferguson was important. Pastor Steve Lawler of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Ferguson then shared a story about a little girl who recently collected food with her family amid the chaos. "She had a cartoon drawing of people getting food in her hand, and she wanted me to say something to the people who had given her this food."
"What do you want me to tell them?" Lawler had asked the girl.
"Say thanks, and say don't be afraid."
Ferguson-Florissant offers sack lunches to students in need
