Reach Out to Lift Up Hurricane Survivors

By SANDY BANKS

Nov. 17, 1998 12 AM PT

It has been more than two weeks since Hurricane Mitch roared through Honduras and Nicaragua, battering the region with torrential rains that left more than 10,000 dead, and buried entire villages beneath landslides, avalanches and floods.

The response in Southern California--home to more than half a million Central American emigres--was immediate and gratifying.

“The phones began ringing right away,” says Lovisa Stannow, West Coast director of Doctors Without Borders, which sends volunteer medical workers from around the world to help victims of disasters.

“It has been felt as a very personal disaster here, because so many people have families who were affected, or at least know someone who does. So we have many, many people who want to do something to help.”

Local schools, churches, businesses and civic groups have collected tons of food, clothing, furniture and medical supplies, and volunteers have spent hundreds of hours packing those donations for transport to Central America.

But despite the outpouring of generosity and goodwill, much of the aid intended for storm victims has been grounded--left sitting in warehouses and parking lots because of the practical problems of delivering disaster relief supplies.

“People want to do something, but the reality is, it is not always productive to go through your pantry or your closets, to send canned goods or clothing,” explains Kathy Schutzer of Operation USA, an international relief agency based in Los Angeles.

Those goods are expensive to ship and difficult to transport through countries where the storm has destroyed bridges and roads.

What storm victims in Central America need most is not more cans of asparagus, relief workers say, but supplies to provide shelter for the millions left homeless, water purification systems so thousands more don’t die from disease, and specific kinds of food and medicine to rescue the thousands teetering on the brink of starvation.

The doctors encounter more victims each day on their helicopter forays through isolated regions of Nicaragua and Honduras, people who survived the floods and mudslides, then starved to death or were ravaged by disease while they waited--perched in trees, on rooftops--for help to arrive.

But the teams from Doctors Without Borders also have plucked hundreds from the jaws of death, administering medication and feeding them specially formulated biscuits, designed to not only nourish the people but to fortify them against disease.

“The biggest problem right now is the high risk of a cholera epidemic,” says Dr. Peter Thesin, a physician from Belgium who is stationed in Managua, Nicaragua.

The medical teams have controlled an outbreak of malaria and fought off an intestinal disease that was spreading among children.

“But we must purify the water or we will lose,” Thesin says. “The diseases will keep spreading. And we must find ways to get out into the areas where people are still waiting for help . . . where they are still dying.”

Their biggest need? Not canned food or clothing, but enough money to acquire the supplies they need.

It sounds crass, the rescue agencies realize.

They walk a fine line, trying to beg for money without discouraging those who feel they cannot afford to give, or antagonizing those who already have donated food, clothing or supplies.

“We know a lot of people don’t want to resort to ‘checkbook philanthropy’ . . . to just write a check and send it off. They want to do something, because it feels better,” Schutzer says.

“That’s wonderfully well-intentioned, but the truth is, it can clog up the recovery network, making it harder for us to get the help to people that they really need.”

Still, there are creative ways that people can give of themselves and still meet the agencies’ need for cold hard cash and the storm victims’ needs for practical relief.

“We know it’s hard to remain helpless in the face of so much misery,” says Claire Gorfinkel of American Friends Service Committee. “So we’re inviting people to put together ‘recovery kits.’ It’s something tangible they can do and we can send along.”

Just take a plastic bag, put in two bars of soap, six candles, and two cloth diapers with pins or an item of infant clothing, Gorfinkel says. Send those kits--along with $5, if you can--to the committee’s Pasadena office, 980 N. Fair Oaks Ave., 91103.

The kits will be distributed in Central America; the money will be used to transport the kits and to help the agency purchase food from Central American markets--rice, beans, milk, flour--to assemble enough food baskets to sustain at least 1,000 families for the next month.

Or, Schutzer says, you can take clothing and household items you would have donated and hold a garage sale, then send the proceeds along to help.

You can forgo a weekend trip to the mall or a movie outing, skip your usual stop for coffee and a bagel on your way to work, collect the change in that jar on your dresser . . . you’d be surprised what you can amass for disaster relief.

And keep in mind the kind of simple but extraordinary opportunities for sacrifice that we encounter every day. Consider the hairdresser who styles the hair of an elderly Honduran woman in my neighborhood each week . . . and this week wouldn’t let her pay.

Send the money to your country, instead, she told her . . . to your people, with our prayers.

Sandy Banks’ column is published Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.

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How You Can Help

Here are some of the agencies active in disaster relief efforts in Central America in the wake of Hurricane Mitch. All are accepting financial contributions; checks should be marked for the Hurricane Mitch relief effort.

American Friends Service Committee

Pacific Southwest Regional Office

980 N. Fair Oaks Ave.

Pasadena, CA 91103

(626) 791-1978

B’nai B’rith International Center for Community Action

1640 Rhode Island Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20036

(202) 857-6582

Christian Children’s Fund

2821 Emerywood Parkway

Richmond, VA 23294