Testimonials

2-1-1 Makes Life Saving Connection 
Glenn Martin, 43, of Monroe Avenue, Barnegat, said police came into his neighborhood with loudspeakers Tuesday to tell residents they had to evacuate. He and his wife, Mary, along with their 15-year-old daughter, and 11- and 6-year-old sons, grabbed a few things, including some of their children's clothes, and hurried out of their house. But they did not know where to go. Then they remembered their 6-year-old came home from school a few months ago with information about New Jersey's 2-1-1 Info Line system. They dialed 211, and learned about the shelter in Stafford, where the family spent the night, he said. "We were lucky that my kids found out about the phone service through the school,'' he said. "If we didn't have that, we would have been wandering the streets.'' Today, their house had a lot of soot inside, he said. "It's a mess, but we're fortunate,'' he said. - Asbury Park Press, 05/16/07

How 2-1-1 Changed a Life
A mother at age 15 and married by age 18, Kim was the victim of both sexual and physical abuse, and survived many failed suicide attempts.  Penniless and desperate, Kim found herself spending a night in a bus station with her four children, where she saw a poster for 2-1-1.  Begging a quarter from a porter, she called 2-1-1, and was referred to an organization that picked them up and found them shelter and clothes.  Wanting more for her children, and realizing that she lacked proper job training and education, Kim dialed 2-1-1 again for help in finding a job.

Based on the 2-1-1 Specialist’s referral, she was accepted into a work readiness program.  After 17 weeks of job training and education, Kim earned her GED and received 13 job offers.  Today, Kim has almost finished her college education and is employed as a resource assistant in Outreach Education for a major hospital.  Kim works with pregnant or at risk teenage girls, and is making a difference in the lives of 300 to 400 teens every month.  Kim has recently remarried and owns her own home.

Bearing Witness to the Aftermath of a Disaster
The personal reflections of Julie Lange, Director of Marketing & Communications for
2-1-1 First Call For Help, Parsippany, NJ

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, United Way of America put out a call for volunteers to go to Louisiana, Houston and Atlanta to help staff the 2-1-1 centers where evacuees were told to call for help in finding financial assistance, shelter, food, transportation, healthcare, clothing and all of the other things they needed to rebuild their lives. I was fortunate to have been one of those volunteers. Knowing it would be an unforgettable experience, I kept the following journal during my stay in Monroe, LA.

Sunday, Sept. 11, 2005
The prospect of climbing onto a jet bound for a disaster area on the anniversary of 9-11 was a little spooky. On the ride to the airport, I noticed this was exactly the same kind of perfect September day as on that fateful morning exactly 4 years ago. As I'd left the house, the memorial service at the WTC site was on TV, that endless solemn calling out of names. I wondered if someone would be doing the same thing for Katrina victims four years hence.

As the miles slipped past on Route 78, I felt a queasiness deep in my belly, and my eyes welled up with tears. It was a melancholy feeling that perhaps I was seeing everything familiar for the last time, because when I returned, I would be seeing them through different eyes. My experiences in Louisiana were sure to change the way I saw the world, and in fact, the world itself could change in an instant, as Katrina had reminded us all.

After an uneventful flight, Cogan Air deposited me at a single terminal airport in downtown Monroe, where all the airport personnel seemed to be on a first-name basis with one another. I was amazed when the president of United Way of Monroe picked me up in her car. She was friendly, gracious, extremely appreciative, and clearly exhausted. She'd been working very long hours alongside her staff since the hurricane hit 2 weeks earlier.

She took me to the United Way building in which the 2-1-1 center is housed. Before the disaster, the center included 3 people on phones, but the operation had swollen to about 25 volunteers working at rows of conference tables in the United Way boardroom. Three of the walls were covered with what looked like white butcher paper, where late-breaking information was scrawled with markers and frequently updated.

After a quick tour, I was offered home-baked peach cobbler, still warm, and directed to the training room where I sat through a 60-minute orientation along with 3 other newly arrived volunteers. All of them, I discovered, would be my housemates at a beautiful 10-acre horse farm outside Monroe, owned by one of the local United Way volunteers.

Our crash course included how to pronounce the names of the towns and counties, such as the county we were in, Ouchita (pronounced watch'-it-awe). It was pretty daunting knowing that the spectrum of calls we'd be handling included everything from people wanting to donate food to those who were contemplating suicide. Then we piled into a large pick-up truck which Kathy, our host, had loaned us to get to and from the farm.

The land in that part of Louisiana is beautiful, rolling green hills scattered with fenced pastures. But alongside this natural lushness was the harsh reality of people standing in long lines to get food and ice, and sleeping on cots in the local civic center.

Monday, Sept. 12, 2005
I reported to the 2-1-1 Center at 8 a.m., full of trepidation about how well equipped I was to help hurricane victims put their lives back together. My role is typically the P.R. spokesperson, the one to report on what happens in a 2-1-1 center, someone who promotes and advocates for 2-1-1. But talking with real people who were experiencing extreme states of distress and loss was way outside my comfort zone. I didn't want to let these people down in their time of great need.

I was relieved when the shift supervisor assigned me to sit next to a more experienced volunteer and observe for a while. But less than an hour later, she asked me to put on the headset and "log in" (call center jargon for getting ready to take calls).
With a lump in my throat, I silently I prayed for an easy one.

I got my wish. The caller wanted to know how to apply for financial aid from FEMA. It went okay. The calls got progressively trickier, but there was always a helper roaming the floor, ready to assist whenever I got stuck, which was fairly often at first because I was so unfamiliar with our reference information. This ad hoc "database" included a 3-ring binder (organized in a way I hadn't yet figured out), three walls full of late-breaking announcements scrawled on large white erasable sheets, and a pile of typed update sheets that were distributed about twice a day.

I felt completely overwhelmed by the task of digging through all of this information to find answers for each caller, and I longed for the luxury of our automated database back in New Jersey and the ease and simplicity of a key word search. But I gradually came to realize that, primitive as it was, this ever-changing paper system--and the reservoir of human knowledge that developed behind it as volunteer staff members became accustomed to working in a state of flux--was probably an efficient way to manage so much fast-breaking information. Given the resources on hand, it would have been difficult to update a computer database so spontaneously.

The calls came fast and furious. By the end of my first day, we had handled about 2,500 calls. An amazing camaraderie developed in the bullpen, with everyone ready to scramble to help a fellow volunteer with a call. The constant tension spawned moments of spontaneous giddiness as well as raw burnout. The shift supervisors encouraged us to take frequent breaks to relieve the stress.

My most challenging call that first day came from a woman who was beside herself with fear and exasperation. Her elderly mother was missing and no one had been able to help locate her. She blamed the state, the National Guard, the White House and racism for the shameful way she and so many other evacuees had been treated in New Orleans in the wake of the hurricane. The woman said she had pushed her elderly mother in a hospital bed from a nearby nursing home to the Superdome in the blazing Louisiana sun, and was forced to wait for days--hungry, thirsty, overheated and without the medical care her mother needed.

The caller believed her mother had suffered a stroke while stranded there, and the 82-year-old was eventually airlifted out for medical treatment. But no one seemed to know where she'd been taken. My caller didn't know whether her mother was alive or dead, but feared the stroke may have rendered her incapable of telling anyone who she was. Now separated for more than a week and desperate for answers, my caller had phoned every hospital that was treating evacuees and she had even traveled to Houston and was about to drive to Atlanta to continue her search. My heart ached for her. I thought, "What if this were my mother?"

My shift supervisor and I searched all the registries of missing persons but to no avail. All I could suggest was to try calling us again tomorrow. I tried to hold out some hope to the caller, but to me it felt like a defeat.

There were also moments of dark humor that first day. One of my fellow volunteers spoke to a woman who had lost her home and everything in it after being evacuated to another city. Adding insult to injury, her mother-in-law, who had also been flooded out of house and home, asked her to go pick up her late father-in-law's cremated remains that had been left at a local funeral home the week before the hurricane. It was a chore the caller considered downright creepy, but she decided to do the right thing.

But she arrived at the funeral home only to find a cleanup underway after Katrina's surge had temporarily submerged everything under 6 feet of water, including the father-in-law's ashes. When the undertaker brought out the remains, they were packaged in a plastic bag that turned out to be less than watertight. He proceeded to snip a small hole in the bottom of the bag to let the water trickle out and then advised the woman to leave the bag open as she drove home so that the soggy ashes could finish drying out.

By the time she finished telling her gruesome story, both the caller and our volunteer were howling with laugher. "You know, if you can find a way to laugh at a time like this, I know you're gonna be all right," my colleague assured the caller at the end of their conversation.

Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2005
It's my birthday today. I was blown away when I walked into the call center after lunch and a big birthday cake was waiting for me. The sound of so many co-workers singing happy birthday brought tears to my eyes. And everyone had signed my birthday card. Another volunteer has a birthday today too, and there's one tomorrow.

Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005
Each day brings a new wave of human crises. Yesterday there were many people still calling the 2-1-1 center searching for lost loved ones. One man I spoke to was searching for his three young children, for whom he and his ex-wife shared custody. The kids were with the mother when the hurricane struck and he'd been unable to locate them since. He didn't know whether to file a missing persons' report or charge her with kidnapping.

At one point, a big cheer went up when we got word that a 29-year-old deaf man had finally been located by a parent who'd been calling us frantically every day for the past 3 weeks.

The level of frustration among callers has been rising day by day. By yesterday, people who had started out with any resources at all when the hurricane struck had exhausted them, but no outside financial help had yet arrived. They'd spent all their savings, maxed out all their credit cards, and yet FEMA assistance and insurance money (if they'd been able to get through at all on the perpetually busy phone lines) had still not arrived. They'd used up their emergency food stamps and were being kicked out of their hotel rooms for lack of funds, but they didn't have the means to pay for a permanent place to live, if indeed they could find one.

We heard stories about people who set their alarms to wake up every hour throughout the night trying to get through to FEMA to apply for assistance. One guy said he finally got through in the wee hours, but in the middle of his conversation, the cell phone battery gave out. Calling the Red Cross financial assistance line was just as bad. In fact I still haven't talked to anyone who said they actually got through. We started giving people the Red Cross chapter office numbers, but people have called back to tell us those numbers have recorded messages on their answering machines telling people to dial the financial assistance line.

Today, a few people started returning to their homes in areas of New Orleans and surrounding parishes where the water has receded. Many called for help in removing trees that had fallen on their homes, were blocking their driveways or were hanging precariously over their roofs. But there was no help available yet because the cleanup crews were concentrating on clearing roads and removing dangerous conditions.

Another big problem today was people who finally returned to their ravaged homes to find the utilities turned off for nonpayment because they hadn't paid the bill since they'd been evacuated. Unfortunately, none of the agencies that normally offer utility assistance in those areas was back in operation since the flood.

The crisis counselors were busier than ever today. Those who had the experience of volunteering after 9-11 predicted that over the next two weeks, we'll see more and more depression and post-traumatic stress as the adrenalin subsides and the harsh reality of daily life begins to sink in.

I continue to be inspired by the level of unswerving commitment I see in my fellow volunteers. One of my housemates is from North Carolina, where Hurricane Ophelia has been hovering just offshore from her home for the past several days. The TV in the back of the room has been set to Fox news, and between calls we've tried to monitor the storm's progress, hearing about evacuations in 6 counties, including her own. But she never for a moment considered returning home early to be with her family and to help shore up their belongings.

The local United Way volunteers are also amazing. Kathy, whose beautiful home became ours for the week, rose at 5 a.m. every day to care for her family while making runs back and forth to the airport to pick up and deliver volunteers from around the country. She's also been in charge of arranging homes for all the out-of-town volunteers to stay in. Lately she has literally been going through her phone book trying to think of more people she could ask to host volunteers in their homes. Meanwhile another local United Way volunteer, Kay, has been organizing home-cooked meals for volunteers in the 211 center, which is staffed 24 hours a day. Last night we had jambalaya for dinneródelicious. This southern cooking makes great comfort food, but it's adding inches to all our waistlines.

I've formed a special bond with one of the shift supervisors, a volunteer from Pennsylvania whose 21-year-old son died less than a year ago. Having lost a teenage son myself 12 years ago, I know all too well how much it cost her emotionally to put herself in the middle of all this angst, tragedy and loss. She committed to a 3-week stint in the 2-1-1 center, and was running on pure adrenaline by the time I met her, but her resilience is amazing. She almost always has a smile on her face and words of encouragement for everyone she encounters.

I've begun to feel a small sense of mastery over the job I'm here to do, although it's very frustrating to have so few good answers for so many of our callers. I'm also feeling a real sense of community among those I work side-by-side with for 12 hours every day. As grim as the job can be, it's a joy to be here together with this shared sense of purpose. I will miss these people.

Friday, Sept. 16, 2005
I'm on the plane from Houston to Newark and will be home within a few hours. It was sad to leave that extraordinary community of volunteers. I learned so much from this experience, and I feel so fortunate to have gone.

During my last day in the Monroe 211 Center, the nature of the calls that came in continued to evolve. More and more people had ventured back into their devastated neighborhoods to try to reclaim their homes. These were the people who had seen the hurricane at its worst. Their voices sounded numb, as if they hadn't yet allowed themselves to feel the full impact of their trauma.

I spoke to one disabled veteran who lived near a levee that broke. He had remained in his home throughout the storm, and thought he was home free after the worst of the hurricane had passed, but then the levee was breached and suddenly there was water coming in and his appliances were floating. He tried to go out his front door, but the pressure of the floodwater held it shut. He grabbed onto the back door, hoping to go out that way, but the door broke free from its hinges, and he held onto it like a life raft until the water rose high enough - over 12 feet - so that he could climb onto his roof, wearing only his undershirt and boxers.

Another man told me he had stayed behind to look after 3 properties he takes care of in New Orleans. In the midst of hurricane, he went out to try to anchor the garage roof by attaching it with wire to the beams, but while he was doing this, the wind took the roof and very nearly took him with it. He retreated to the innermost reaches of the building and spent the rest of the storm in the fetal position, he said.

Down the block from the 2-1-1 Center at Milo's coffee shop, where several us went on break, we found ourselves standing in line behind a woman who was staying at the makeshift shelter in the Civic Center. She had been a nurse at one of the New Orleans hospitals, and her supervisors had told her to throw together enough uniforms and provisions for herself to last a week and bring them in to work. She pulled her nursing degree off the wall and threw it into a wheeled cooler along with a case of bottled water, her passport, some utility bills and 4 cans of bear from her refrigerator, and she reported for duty.

With the electricity out in the hospital and no elevators working, she and fellow staff had to carry the non-ambulatory patients up several flights of stairs to keep them above the flood level. She and her fellow nurses worked all day and night doing this without lights or air conditioning. They watched as all of the windows were blown out by the storm, and then they shared those 4 beers as if they were nectar from the gods.

She told us she was now living in a shelter in Monroe and didn't know where she'll go from there. She was still waiting for her FEMA assistance. Her insurance wouldn't cover flood damage--a loophole, she said. She was hoping to find work somewhere else, and not anxious to return to New Orleans.

We continued to get missing person reports yesterday, but now people were looking for cousins and aunts and uncles and grandchildren rather than immediate family. Every once in a while another round of applause would go up in the center when someone called in to tell us they'd found a loved one who had been missing.

One of the things that impressed me so much over the past week was the gratitude and patience and civility I observed among so many people who endured unbelievable hardship and loss. Nevertheless, by yesterday the anger and despair were beginning to come out in some of the callers. Beyond losing everything they ever owned or valued, beyond the inhuman living conditions that some had endured, beyond the uncertainty about the future, beyond the sadness over loved ones lost, so many now felt like they were being shuttled from pillar to post in search of the help they'd heard was available but so elusive.

Some had been trying to call American Red Cross or FEMA for days or weeks, to no avail. My fellow volunteer from Iowa talked to a woman who was diabetic and taking care of her elderly, sick mother. The caller needed insulin but she had no prescription with her, and very little money. We had advised her, as well as other such callers, to go to specific pharmacies that were supposedly providing free medicine to evacuees.

So this woman walked some distance in the summer heat to a pharmacy in one of the designated chains. But she was turned away. By the time she called us back, she had been rationing her little remaining insulin in very small doses; her voice was very weak and she sounded seriously ill. My colleague advised her to get to an emergency room as soon as possible.

It's hard for me to believe that any pharmacist would hold back on lifesaving medication during a disaster, but chaos makes communications difficult, and he may not have gotten word about what the home office had promised to the public. This is one small example of how difficult it can be to verify and communicate important information during a disaster.

In spite of such frustrations, as I look back on this experience I am struck by the unbelievable unity, harmony and even a kind of peace I felt among my coworkers while operating in the midst of a very chaotic and heart-rending situation. I never heard a harsh word spoken among the volunteers, although all of us were working 12-hour shifts with no days off. Everyone bent over backwards to support and encourage one another. New people were made to feel welcome and appreciated. It was an incredible model of how beautiful things can be, even in the worst of conditions.

This must be what Native American elders mean when they say, "Walk in beauty." It's a shame that sometimes it takes a disaster to put us in touch with our own humanity.