After Hurricane Harvey, hope found at the San Antonio Food Bank
I too often forget our nation’s resilience.
After the storms that ravaged Alabama in 2011, I witnessed the devastation of nature firsthand. The F5 tornado that hammered Hackleburg might as well have been a giant bomb that leveled the whole city. Giant oaks were reduced to bare nubs protruding from the earth, houses were little more than piles of bricks, and blue jeans and denim were scattered everywhere because the Wrangler plant had been torn apart.
With that kind of damage, it’s hard to know where to begin.
So we simply started helping. For every pile of debris we cleared, there were thousands more. We didn’t care. There wasn’t much we could do for the physical structures; we were there for the people who survived inside them. Our neighbors needed our help.
I remember the tears flowing from the eyes of one resident. She’d just lost everything and was overwhelmed that complete strangers would come to her aid. As much as she needed help removing debris and salvaging what she could, she needed to know that she wasn’t alone and that people cared about her.
The years have flown by, and that experience had faded in my mind. The images from Hurricane Harvey brought it back.
We don’t know the total impact of Harvey, but the damage is immense. I had a previously scheduled work trip to San Antonio this past week. Wanting to help displaced people in Texas, a few of my colleagues and I decided to volunteer at the San Antonio Food Bank.
We weren’t alone. Waves of volunteers were on hand during our shift. The food bank staff ran the operation with surgical precision despite the large number of people. Almost all of us were taking time off work to help. It was the right thing to do, and our employers backed us up. In addition our group, USAA, Wells Fargo and several other companies sent significant numbers of employees. Our shift spent several hours sorting carrots and corn. At the end of our shift, our team bagged 24,000 pounds of food – equivalent to 18,000 meals. Other teams at the food bank prepared meals, boxed household necessities and helped with intake for donated goods.
We’ll probably never meet the folks we ultimately helped. We just knew we needed to show up. That’s what we do as Americans. Times of crisis truly test the fabric of our republic. If my brief experience in San Antonio is any indication, that fabric will hold.
We will continue to disagree and argue in our politics and media. We’re free people with strong opinions and beliefs. Our politics are cantankerous and probably always will be. But if we can transcend all of that to help people in a disaster, why can’t we do it at other times as well? What we can do together is so much more impressive than anything we do apart.
Why can’t we make sure all kids have food at home? Couldn’t we find common ground to better preserve our environment? Maybe we can make adoptions easier? If nothing else, shouldn’t we do a better job of letting our neighbors know that they’re not alone, and we care about them?
Maybe we’ve lost perspective about what’s possible for our nation. We simply don’t believe we’re actually capable of changing our stars.
Somewhere in the carrots and corn, I found hope at the San Antonio Food Bank. We are able to see beyond ourselves. We do care about our neighbors. We aren’t irretrievably a nation in decline. If we’re willing to embrace that and show up for each other, America’s future is as bright as it ever was.
