I have been a “fixer” for as long as I can remember. I first became conscious of this during the Live Aid concert, which aired when I was a little kid. I didn’t understand a lot, of course, but the images of those starving Ethiopian children sure struck me hard. The fact that these musicians were raising money to help those kids made me wonder what I could do to help them. I didn’t really act on this sentiment, though, until 2003. In the wake of 9/11 and all of the horrible news coming out of Iraq, I wanted to create something tangibly good in the world. I co-founded Homespun Helpers with a friend of mine.
The idea behind this online only group (Livejournal was the platform we started with) was pretty simple. Instead of just working by yourself to donate items to one cause or another, we wanted to tally the work of a whole bunch of people, with the goal of all of us contributing to make and donate 3,000 items in a year. After a brief hiatus of a couple years or so, I brought Homespun Helpers back to Facebook.
My dream has always been that Homespun Helpers would get enough notoriety so that if an organization needed homemade items, they would reach out to our network and we would be able to help where we are most needed. We are not to that point yet, but I still have hope that we will get there. In the meantime, we try to fill gaps as best we can.
The first really big gap we tried to fill came after the Boston Marathon bombings. There was so much fear and hatred in the air after that. Do you remember that? I posed the question to the group. Can we make something that would be given to the victims’ families, victims themselves, and the caregivers at the Boston hospitals where the victims were taken? From that question, Blankies for Boston was born. It has since branched out into another group. Within a day or so, we had 100 items on the new page. Currently there are 933 “fans” on that page. I am proud to have been a part of such a great effort.
It was that experience that inspired me to fill another gap more recently. When I heard about the shootings at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, my heart sank just as it did after the Boston shootings. The Marathon is certainly sacred to some people, but churches are known as safe spots. What could be more innocent than a prayer meeting?
The Boston Marathon bombings killed 3 people. The shooter in Charleston killed nine people. I figured if I could get an effort started there would be an even greater reaction than the one we got after the Boston tragedy.
It’s almost exactly two months later, and there are currently 69 “fans” of the page. For these efforts to work, it is not about one person trying to make 1,000 items. It’s about 1,000 people trying to make five items.
I do not want to imply that I do not appreciate the 68 people who joined the page to support the effort. The people who have made items (we’re at 13 so far) will forever hold my gratitude. But one person can only do so much. The hope was that we would be able to show solidarity in the face of race hatred. The hope was that we would be able to shower the congregation of that church with what I like to call “tangible love” – afghans, prayer shawls, and other hand-crafted items.
Some have suggested the name for the new effort (Love for the Lowcountry) isn’t as catchy as Blankies for Boston. Some have suggested that people have their own charities they are crafting for and those take the priority.
That could be so. To me, however, the silence is deafening, and I can only come to the conclusion that people were not as hurt, not as outraged, after the Charleston event as they were after the Boston event. Boston maybe was easier to get behind. A Muslim guy killing mostly white people is something we can all rail against. The Charleston shooting and the church fires that happened afterward, against a backdrop of cases like Trayvon Martin and Sandra Bland, perhaps make people face questions they do not want to ask. Crafting things for Black Americans who once again fell victim to race hatred may be too uncomfortable. If we craft for those victims, we have to acknowledge that they died, how they died, and why they died. Maybe that is too much for people to swallow.
I would love to hear other explanations as to why the need to heal was not as great after Charleston. You will have a hard time convincing me that racism – subtle and savage – was not at the heart of this mostly failed effort. I am heartbroken, to be honest, to see how few people were looking for a way to comfort that Charleston community. If they had been looking, they’d have found us.
Until we acknowledge racism in our country, we cannot kill it.
Marjorie,
Hello my dear friend. Your post today shocked me- and hurt my heart. Shocked, I am sorry to say because we have been cut off so much with power and satellite issues… not having news. My heart is breaking once again for the fear and hatred that seems to continue to breed and flourish amid humanity no matter what lessons we are given to learn from, no matter how many beautiful miracles we are witness to.
WHY?…
Discomfort? Yes, sadly, that makes perfect sense… as easy as it is to see and react to faults in others, it is so much harder for us as people to see those very often same faults in ourselves, much less work to correct them.
Of course, we all must come to these … awakenings of more than “self” our own ways and in our own times, but it seems so hard for some (most?) to not only acknowledge but to follow through on the hard and I suspect often painful work these newly seen truths into our own lives.
But to your point and question of why the need was not as great after the tragedy of Charleston… Maybe that isn’t it at all, not really. Our need is – because anything like this touches all humanity indeed- but maybe it was that the pain and heart ache was at yet another overflow point- people simply couldn’t hold any more pain for a bit, and it (the pain and need for healing) was covered by “today’s” needs, fears, aches and busyness.
I will pass the word. This pain still needs healing and we need to see, acknowledge and heal the fear and hatred that causes us all so much pain.
AlaskaChickBlog You could be right. I am open to other explanations, but the stark contrast between the reaction to this tragedy versus the reaction to others is hard to ignore, and racism seems to make the most sense as the explanation, unfortunately.
Thanks for taking the time to comment!