I got a message from Jane, a high school student in Indiana this morning, she said “they keep telling us they will protect us, but I know and all of my friends know they are lying. Did they protect those kids in Florida yesterday?”
She was talking about the new RISSE – refugee and immigrant support center based in Albany – Amazon Wish List.
A refuge from Myanmar, a student a RISSE, a member of the soccer team, was nearly in tears over the news from Ft. Lauderdale. “America is getting to be just like my country,” he said. “They kill children.”
I watched some of the videos – I feel I need to do that, at least for a few minutes. People fear that we are growing numb, but no one I knew was numb, their hearts are broken, they mostly just feel helpless, and that is different from numb.
Then I collected myself and was grateful that Ali and I were on a special mission of good today – to get the NIke bags for the soccer team stenciled with the team name and the player’s name, 20 Nike Brasilia bags, the hottest equipment bags of all, with water proof compartments, space for stinky sneakers and snacks and cold water and a soccer ball.
These are classy bags, they cost $45 a piece. They are a personal gift from me to the team. Ali said these bags are the “greatest possible thing to give to these kids.”
Next Wednesday, the soccer team plays in a big Tournament, the President’s Day tournament at the Sportsplex of HalfMoon Sports in Half Moon, N.Y. We plan to surprise the kids before or after the game with their new equipment bags with their names on it.
“It is ordained,” said Ali, “we will win the tournament.” Maria and I, and Red, the official team mascot are coming to watch the game and head out with the team for a celebratory dinner.
Ali is himself one of the good people. He has devoted much of his life to making sure his kids, as he calls them, get through the storm of moving to America, they come with broken lives and fragile dreams.
One of the good people who dropped out of the sky was Kevin Smith, a co-owner of the Sportsflex, and a good and generous man who has made it possible for the team to practice indoors all through this cold winter and get some nourishing food to eat after each practice.
He also led us to another good man, whose name is Todd Van Epps, he runs a company called Wicked Smart Apparel in Watervliet, N.Y. Kevin Smith introduced us to him, and we took the bags there today. We decided a “RISSE” stencil in black, and below that, in teal, the player’s name. There are 20 kids on the team, four more hoping to get on.
Ali, who is a stern coach, says the four will have to earn their bags. Todd, whose company is headquartered in an iconic former Catholic School (he’s in the Principal’s office, he left the “principal’ plate on the door). Todd is a good person, with a beating heart, and he wanted to help the team.
He is doing the stenciling for us for $7.50 a bag, which we know is far below his regular price (another company said it would cost them $20). He will have the bags done before Wednesday’s tournament game.
I thanked Todd Van Epps profusely, but I imagine he would value it if some of you did, also. It’s become a tradition of ours, if you are so inclined, his e-mail is [email protected]. We asked him to design uniforms for the up and coming Risse Women’s Basketball Team, now numbering nine players. The season has not yet begun.
Todd was very good to us, he is an empathetic man, he asked about the kids, what they were like and where they came from. I thanked him,
(Another surprise, I’m getting Ali a megaphone so he won’t have to scream so loudly across the field in practice and at the games.)
I was awash in good people today, they fell out of the sky. They healed me and challenged me and uplifted me, and reminded me of what it means to be a human.
First, a member of the Army Of Good sent RISSE a check for $20,000. Then, a flood of people rushed onto RISSE’s new baby, an Amazon Wish List of things the kids in the after school program need right now.
I got a bunch of e-mails right away. “Is this all there is on that list?,” Marsha asked, “we will take care of that in five minutes.” And they did.
RISSE will expand the page once they figure out what a link is, technology is new to them.
But the page works fine – a good antidote today – and by the late afternoon, there were only three items left on the wish list page – a wall mount towel holder/dispenser, a request for six clipboards, and a school pack of colored scissors with anti-microbial protection, blunt and in assorted colors for$14.06.
Earlier, I bought some Play-doh ($7.99); Uno playing cards for $3.99; a Toy Smith jump rope for $4.15, a red rubber playground ball and two black wall clocks ($11.91 each).
A lot of good people came behind me and nearly cleaned the list out. Just two or three things left, as Martha warned.
“Is that all?,” asked Carol from Louisiana, “didn’t you tell them about us?”
Not enough, I guess, the wish list is being replenished as we speak, or so I hope. Be gentle with RISSE, they are new to this kind of thing. But they will grasp it quickly. They need a lot of things.
They cleared out a classroom to make space for the good clothing you sent them, you have equipped scores of refugees and immigrants for their first American winter, they aren’t going to thrift shops now or bargain stores they come to their well-stocked classroom for wonderful clothes in good condition.
More good people.
Every good person I encountered, or read about, or who e-mailed me, or who helped us, or who we met today nourished me, soothed me, uplifted me. I am sorry I didn’t find this healing venue many years ago, I often looked in the wrong places for the things I wanted.
No one can really be prepared for the Army Of Good. It’s like a hurricane, you know it’s coming but until you feel it you can’t grasp it. Just ask the staff and residents of the Mansion.
So it was a good day, good-wise, and an awfully heart-breaking day otherwise.
Really, how do we handle this, what can we feel about it?
This was the 18th school shooting of young 2018, our country is averaging the murder of children school every other day, and our government and leaders are paralyzed, spouting empty lies and platitudes.
My own idea is that the country will one day have to come together and decide what kind of country it wants to be, and fight for our children, and for empathy, justice, and compassion. A country that will not protect its children from being slaughtered brutally by lethal weapons of war is broken in spirit, soul and honor.
I cannot bear to think of what the last minutes of those children’s lives were like.
Jane, you are right. I apologize for my country, which has failed to protect you. But nobody can stop us or keep us from this curiously healing antidote, performing small acts of kindness.
Good people were dropping out of the sky today.