Joplin Tornado Disaster Relief

In late May of this year, a tornado struck Joplin, MO.  It was the deadliest tornado to hit the US since 1947 and the rebuild is likely to cost $3 billion.  The devastation in Joplin was rampant and was a travesty for not only the state of MO, but for our country as a whole.

After these events took place, C&W began a donation drive requesting in-kind donations from our properties to be delivered to Joplin in an effort to help in any way we can.  Over the course of 2 months, we accumulated many boxes from C&W properties all over the country and had them shipped out to Branson, MO where we have 3 properties. 

On August 24th, I loaded these boxes and drove them out to Joplin so that I could see first hand what we were donating toward.  When I first got off of the interstate in Joplin, I looked around and did not see any devastation.  I began to wonder secretly if it was possible that the town had already rebuilt.  I thought after seeing the pictures after the tornado, that it would have been impossible, but I couldn't fine any damage on the building around me.  As I drove closer to the city center, I noticed a few signs that had been twisted and damaged and thought maybe I was getting closer to where the tornado hit.  But nothing, even those thoughts prepared me for the damage that I happened upon just a few short blocks later.  The landscape literally went from brick buildings with no damage to complete and utter destruction.  I crossed one street where things were still standing to a mile long strip of pure debris.  The destruction looked about a mile long and 2-3 miles deep from where I was driving.  I knew then that my description of the devastation would not be enough to explain how bad it was so I pulled over to a side street and tried to take pictures.  The pictures sill will not show how awful the scene was, but it will at least provide some type of visual that my memories and words cannot.

I continued driving to get our boxes to a donation center.  When I arrived at the Salvation Army in downtown, it was very busy.  There were workers unloading entire moving vans of donations and relief items.  Individuals were pulling up in their SUVs also dropping off items to help.  In all, there were probably a dozen workers just unloading trucks and sorting the items as needed.  It was wonderful to see that people are still actively responding to this effort.  But after seeing what exactly they were working to replace and rebuild, I realized that more items and more volunteers are still needed greatly. 

I want to take a moment and truly thank all of those individuals and C&W properties that donated items.  I hope you know how beneficial those items will be to families that are still without homes and in need of shelter and basic essentials.  Please know that C&W cannot continue these efforts without your support and we want to thank you for continually sacrificing of yourselves to help those in need. 

In order to help you understand a little better what your items and donations will be used for, I have posted some pictures below.  Thank you again to everyone for all of your selfless actions and donations.  You are all truly appreciated.

The following pictures are what used to be a residential areas with hundreds of homes.  Now, there is only the base of a house left, and in many cases, just rubble.

 

Inside what is left of the foundation of this home is all of the household items that were blown around pushed all into one room.  It is now just a jumbled mess of unusable items that used to be someone's home.

The power lines all had to be replaced as they were ripped apart and shredded into splinters by the tornado.

As you can see here, there is still a great deal of debris and ruble from the homes and buildings that they have been unable to clean up.

This is one of the few homes that is in the process of being rebuilt.  There were a few here and there, but out of the hundreds of homes that were lost, this is a rare sight.

These were the concrete steps to someone's house that no longer exists.

This house was just one block from all of the destruction in the previous pictures.  It is still standing, with significant damage; but it shows how unpredictable a tornado can be.  I took every house to the right of this block without mercy.

In the distance there you can see a crew of men working construction on a home.  This was being overseen by the National Guard.  But again, the rebuilding that this town is in need of cannot be completed over night.  This will take quite a while.

This is a close up of the debris on the ground.  Nowhere in the destruction zone is there a spot of ground that isn't completely covered in this type of debris.  The dirt is littered with pieces of homes and buildings.  It is truly a tragic sight.

I hope that these images have helped you understand how devastating this event was for the town of Joplin, MO.  It is truly unfortunate that events like this take place, but despite not knowing any of those that lost homes in Joplin, I know that they will appreciate all of the items that were given to them by those that donated at C&W.  Every little bit counts and sometimes that's all that we can do.

August Miriam's Kitchen

This morning, Thursday August 11th, 3 C&W team members visited Miriam's for our 2nd Thursday volunteer date.  The participants this month were Miguel Gonzalez, Ana Lopez, and Christin Morgan.

Just like every other time the C&W family has visited Miriam's we had tons of fun!  We were able to make eggs, pancakes, biscuits...the works!  And then we got to serve the line again. 

Below is a testimonial from Miguel of his time spent at Miriam's:

“Since this is my third visit to Miriam’s Kitchen, I already know what to expect during and what needs to be done. Regardless, from the night before ( the need to set up the alarm clock for a 4:30 AM call) to the moment we leave Miriam’s parking lot after we complete our tasks is pure joy. Seeing volunteers form different walks of life that never meet each other and never worked in an industrial kitchen before and being able to prepare a full breakfast for 200 people in just under one hour is admirable. Then you serve the meals and at this moment is when you really appreciate how blessed you are and how much need for help some people have. I feel that every time I visit Miriam’s Kitchen I recharge my energy and reset my priorities. A very humble experience every time!”

Wonderfully written!

And here are a few pictures from our morning in the kitchen...

Until next time...  :)

Healthy Cereal

To continue our partnership with Miriam's Kitchen, we recieved a request to donate healthy cereal as it is used daily as a part of the breakfast offered to guests.  Typically at Miriam's once the main dish (pancakes, crepes, etc) are gone, the guests are offered a healthy cereal option instead.  They go through over 100 boxes per week and at the time, they were down to less than a week's worth.

The C&W office rallied and collected many boxes of cereal that we dropped off at Miriam's.  As I was dropping the cereal, it was a spectacular site because I had the opportunity to see how much cereal was donated by other volunteers.  They had by this time, aquired 2 walls worth of cereal.  It was an amazing site to see.  They say a picture (or a mental image in this case) is worth a thousand words, and it truly was because I could then envision all of the other individual volunteers and companies like C&W that cared enough about the guests at Miriam's and cause they support to collect cereal to donate.  It was heart warming in every way possible.

After I dropped off the cereal, a couple of weeks later, I received this very kind hand written note in the mail as a thank you for our collective effort.  I shared this letter with our office, and now I would like to share it with everyone else as well.

"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  By feeding and providing hospitality for the guests of Miriam's Kichen, we are not only making a world of difference to those guests, we are also helping to improve the quality of life for those in our society who need it the most, thereby helping to strenghten our society as a whole." -Miriam's Kitchen Volunteer

"Everyone at Coakley and Williams,
We are extremely grateful for all the boxes of cereal you collected and donated to us at Miriam's Kitchen.  We are so happy to count you all on our team of volunteers and are so thankful for your kindness and generosity.  Volunteers like you all, who go the extra mile, are a temendous force for good and an inspiration to everyone.  Thank you for everything you do to make the lives of our guests better.
With gratitude,
The Miriam's Kitchen Team"

I think collectively, we would all like to say a huge THANK YOU to the Miriam's Kitchen Team.  It is more than our pleasure to volunteer and collect donations for those in need. 
Also, thank you to everyone that brought in these donation items for Miriam's.  We obviously could not give of ourselves to the community without those of you that actively partcipate.

July Miriam's Kitchen

First, I want to apologize to everyone for my absense recently.  But here I am to get us caught up on C&W Philanthropy!

In late June, Coakley and Williams strengthened our partnership with Miriam's Kitchen by guaranteeing one volunteer shift per month.  We signed up for 3-4 volunteers for 1 breakfast shift on the 2nd Thursday of every month.  So far this has been going wonderfully!

July was our first monthly volunteer date and we immediately had a group of employees sign up from the Hilton Springfield.  We sent David Melugin, Kirstenn Reed, Joe Pancione, and Trey Talbot.  Based on the information I got out of the group they had a great time serving the Miriam's guests.

Please see David's beautiful description of his time spent at Miriam's:

"As always, I come away from Miriam’s with a renewed hope for mankind and myself. We are all here for each other and everyone you meet has been placed in your path for a reason. During my most recent visit, I was the cereal milk, salad & smoothie guy and a member of the busser crew. That was my contribution to the morning but the return on my efforts was tenfold. I was blessed by meeting a gentleman [unfortunately we are unable to list names of Miriam's guests]. We had a wonderful conversation about his life and how his love of knowledge keeps him motivated to see the sun rise. He spends many days reading and is fascinated by the Library of Congress. Although our encounter was brief in the scheme of things, [his] firm handshake and warm stare told me that our goodbye was only temporary. I look forward to seeing [him] again to continue my lesson from him in what makes a man, a man. Thank you [Miriam's guest], I am a better person for knowing you. I thank God that he put you in my path.

David"

Inspirational!  Thank you for such an amazing testimony David.  We all hope to have such an eye-opening experience.