h/t TAH
Frank Recce didn’t wait for the cavalry to come. He created one.
When superstorm Sandy socked Staten Island last week, the 24-year-old longshoreman from the borough’s Great Kills section sprang into action, connecting neighbors with able-bodied men who helped clear debris, pumped away filthy floodwater and removed rain-soaked sheetrock from homes in New Dorp and Oakwood Beach.
“We’re basically giving the people of the neighborhood organization,” Recce told FoxNews.com. “We were able to hit more than 200 houses by Monday. We’ve done more for our community than FEMA, the Red Cross and the National Guard combined, directly hitting houses and people in need.”
What began as a ragtag group of 12 men has grown into expectations of more than 100 volunteers this weekend as the group — using the name Brown Cross — will resume its operations after taking a much-needed planning day on Thursday, Recce said.
“It basically signifies that we’re willing to get dirty, to do the labor,” Recce said of the group’s name. “And we’re from the neighborhood; we’re strictly from the neighborhood.”Read the rest....
Recce, an Army veteran who received a Purple Heart after being wounded in Iraq, said he wasn’t shocked by the disaster response from federal agencies, but questioned whether authorities were truly prepared for the storm.
Good on him and his neighbors! That is what Americans used to routinely do, and its what they did in North Dakota and in Joplin, Missouri.
ReplyDeleteOnly in places where people are so benumbed by government "assistance" has the urge to help yourself been snuffed.
There's probably a lesson in there somewhere...
Absolutely. There's a fundamental lesson there.....I wish more citizens would learn it.
ReplyDelete