Shootings, Fires, and American Generosity
Americans responded to the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, CT in 2012 with immense generosity toward the victims’ families. But, as the New York Times surveyed in an article three weeks ago, there were unintended consequences from the large scale donations. Families saw their loved ones’ names and pictures used in ad campaigns to raise money, implying that donations would go to victims. But the national organizations often used the money for their own projects in Newtown.
Many people are now cautious about where they give during a tragedy.
Here in Chico, CA, we experienced incredible generosity to help survivors of the Camp Fire, which destroyed nearby Paradise last November. Local corporate giving was awe-inspiring. Sierra Nevada Brewery, along with many restaurants and stores, fed survivors free meals for weeks. National groups have also done amazing things. Samaritan’s Purse and other relief organizations have helped people sift the ashes to find belongings. Retailers like J. C. Penney gave away new clothing.
But relief can pose challenges. Almost immediately, our town received truckloads of used clothes and furniture. Initially these donations met lots of needs. But leftover mounds sat for weeks in storage rooms, garages, and sometimes parking lots. I fielded calls a month after the fire asking where to send clothes. Like many others, I pleaded with givers to desist.
Scuttlebutt was that many of the trucks were carrying donations from other disasters. I can’t confirm that. But I do imagine pastors on the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast lifting their hands in praise as shipping containers of used flip-flops and camo shorts finally departed their churches.
Local leaders advised people that gift cards were a better way to help, which set off a blizzard of plastic. Survivors could buy what they needed right away instead of digging through pressed-wood TV stands, plastic chairs, and pink Hello Kitty t-shirts with sparkles.
But we had to think fast about how to handle the cards. At a funeral I conducted days after the fire (an unrelated passing), people who came from out of town were shoving thousands of dollars of pre-paid credit cards into my hands. “I don’t need a receipt,” they would say. “Just pass it on to the victims.” Then they would drive off. My staff and I hustled back and forth to the office safe as fast as we could.
Local organizations scrambled to keep up with the giving, and the flaws have sometimes exposed larger entities to public resentment. The issue of where money goes has been at the heart of every conversation I’ve had with donors, especially strangers who call from out of town. “We want to know that our gifts will help the victims.”
The day after the fire, we opened a fund for the 28 individuals (12 households) from our church who lost everything in Paradise. On the web page, in phone conversations, and in email and text threads, we were clear that the fund was not for the broader community, only for our people. We were not able to administer anything larger than that. If the donor wanted a broader fund, we referred them to organizations that operated on a larger scale. Donors always asked, “Are you confident in that organization?” When we said yes, reporting what community members had experienced from the group, donors were grateful. All they wanted was due diligence.
Our fund received a total of $131,115.07 from November 2018 through May 2019, when we closed it. Every couple of months, a committee divided the proceeds equally among the 28 individuals. The committee also distributed the gift cards equally, but their value is not included in this total. The gifts made a significant difference to the survivors. We did nothing to promote this fund — no advertising, no pictures, no names. No part of the fund went to “administrative costs.” It closed with a deficit of one penny. (Please, do not help.)
If disaster strikes your community, you will see urgent generosity from strangers. You will also hear questions. Scale your disaster response to what you can really achieve, and be clear with donors about your limits. Advice about how to do this will be contradictory, and early on we spent too much time seeking input instead of cutting checks. Just set a simple goal and meet it.
The survivors will also be generous. Our job is to give. They can decide what to do with the help. My friend Joey Newton, a pastor in Newtown who prayed with grieving families at Sandy Hook on that horrifying day, told me that “many of the families started foundations to honor the death of their child by giving back. One such case not mentioned in the [Times] article is Race for Chase, named after one of the victims. It is a summer triathlon program run in partnership with the YMCA for children up to 12 years old. It has been a great program and is spreading throughout the state and beyond.”
Even though this kind of suffering is profound, our gifts can help survivors create redemptive legacies.
