When my family, friends, school district, coalesced with our fellow Delawareans to stuff a truck - a 17 ft UHaul - headed for Hopatcong, New Jersey, to deliver relief to a borough badly beaten by Sandy, I truly had no idea that we were being intricately woven into a Thanksgiving miracle.
So much has been written and recorded about that trip into a desolate and darkened county. We were stunned to be greeted at the shelter with a news crew and the New Jersey Education Association quick on their heals. If that first story aired on NJTV, we never saw it - we were en route home, and really, we didn't care. We weren't looking for press.
I spent the following days organizing our photos along with some "lent" to us by those living in Hopatcong into a photo essay. The motivation was simple - create an online archive of the devastation, the development, and delivery for those who both donated and received. When we pushed forward that first weekend following the hurricane, we did so with no non-profit status and no tax breaks to donors, no tracking donors, and no formal thank-you. After hours of receiving donations, we locked down our truck and stood with the Zedans and said to each other, "This is amazing. All of these donations, all of these people who didn't know us, trusted us, strangers, to take these items to those who needed them." The four of us were awe-struck. The day we launched hopatcong.blogspot.com, we were again astonished when the website gathered 20,000 unique hits in 24 hours.
The surprises and the good karma have continued. Our photos were "borrowed," meshed with others, and made into an amazing video. New Jersey and New York media outlets finally picked up the stories of Hopatcong and surrounding townships. The News Journal called - while I was with my Girl Scouts - the same girls who, with their parents, helped us pack the truck. Beckie Zedan, my partner in crime and off-the-chart crazy ideas, received a special thank you letter from students in Hopatcong. And lastly, as we headed into Thanksgiving week, the New Jersey Education Association released the following video - the pictorial shows the story of the wonderful NJ teachers who, in the face of disaster, put their students first!
Happy Thanksgiving!
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