Today is Friday, January 2nd, 2009; Karen's Korner #1480
It was 4 o'clock on December 23 that my sister started hearing a blast of sirens coming from every direction! What is happening she thought?
She learned that a 64-unit apartment complex less than a mile from her home was burning; fire trucks and fireman were called in from around the neighboring areas of Burnsville.
"We started to hear in the media that 190 people had been living in those apartments," said Jill, "but all of them had gotten out safely. There were no deaths and no injuries. No one was allowed to go back into their apartments. But they organized metro transit buses to take all of the people to the Burnsville High School."
Jill said she and her daughter Colleen started to go through some of their stash of clothes, finding which they could give away. "We loaded up five garbage bags of clothing items and headed for the Burnsville school," she said. "Because it was in the process of happening, everything was a bit chaotic. News trucks were there. Red Cross and Salvation Army volunteers were on hand, but no food, clothing, or blanket drives had been organized yet."
The Red Cross and Salvation Army volunteers began moving the news trucks to a more obscure location. Someone came to their car window and asked them what they had, clothes was the answer. The unnamed volunteer said the car ahead of them was a family with young children. "They had run to Target and bought 48 toothbrushes and 24 tubes of toothpaste," Jill said. "They offered apologies of not being able to do more, but the kids had thought, 'what are all those people going to do without even being able to brush their teeth?'"
The volunteer said to Jill and Colleen, "Look behind you."
Jill said she could see headlights of at least 25 cars joining the caravan of those wanting to help.
As luck would have it, the Burnsville girls' basketball team was playing a game, so tables could not be set up. "As soon as the game was over the girls became some of the volunteers," Jill said. "The coach called the boys' basketball team to come and help as well. You have to remember now that none of these people are trained volunteers and no organized giving campaign had started."
A neighboring Burger King sent down 250 hamburgers; Cub Foods contributed 500 pieces of chicken.
They learned through the media, organizers were looking for area residents to adopt-a-family until housing could be found and by morning only 30 people didn't have a place to go!
The man/organization/company who owned the apartment complex saw to it that every family unit received $800; their rental deposits; and the rent for the month was returned or given to each apartment dweller. A mega-church in the area started a furniture collection of used furniture. Not only was furniture collected, if anyone in the metro area had used furniture to give, they would send out teams to pick up items and take them to the church.
But the biggest gift of all: an anonymous donor, working through the Wells Fargo Bank, gave $1 million for relief of the 190 former residents. "Each family unit received $17,000," Jill said, "with the instructions that his/her/their identity never be revealed and that the money had to be all distributed by Christmas Eve."
The Burnsville mayor told the media how proud he was of the people of his community. One of the recipients said, "I can't believe the kindness of so many, many people. Especially in a big city where we sometimes claim, we don't even know our neighbors."
Help me answer this question: "Was this event a tragedy? An inconvenience? Or a Christmas blessing?"
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