Baby Buggy Hurricane Sandy Family Assistance Fund

While Superstorm Sandy has faded from memory for many New Yorkers, we know firsthand at Baby Buggy that the aftermath of this devastating storm continues to challenge the many low-income families we serve on Coney Island, the Rockaways, Lower Manhattan, and in New Jersey.  Our efforts have shifted from providing emergency relief to finding creative ways to help the programs and families we serve rebuild their facilities and their lives.  A few weeks ago, a bunch of Baby Buggy staffers piled into a car and headed out to check in with some of the Head Start and Early Head Start programs we serve in Brighton Beach, Coney Island, and Far Rockaway.  Even though we are in constant communication with the program leaders and teachers at these sites through phone and e-mail, we thought it was time for another in-person visit to see how the rebuilding process was going.

We were delighted to see what great progress they are making in repairing and rebuilding their early education classrooms, but we also heard many harrowing stories of families who continue to struggle with housing and employment as a result of the storm.  Many of the families whose children attend one of our Head Start programs in Brighton Beach live in small basement apartments with multiple families.  Not surprisingly, many of these apartments were completely flooded during Sandy and while many have been repaired, the warm summer weather is bringing mold and poor air quality to these tiny, crowded apartments.  As a result, we are planning to provide high-quality air purifiers to these families to try to prevent little lungs from breathing in the mold and dust that Sandy has left in its wake.  Many families continue to struggle with meeting basic needs and we are also providing help with groceries to ensure that food is not a major concern as they rebuild their lives.  Many families lost all of their possessions in the flooding and we are also helping provide summer play clothing for the children in these communities.

The rebuilding process has been incredibly challenging for the staff members working at these sites who have had to deal with the aftermath of Sandy both at work and at home.  They are an incredibly creative and resilient bunch who go above and beyond to help the children in their programs recover and rebuild while supporting their parents as well.  When water flooded two ground-floor classrooms in Far Rockaway, all the toys, furniture, books, and supplies were completely ruined, including some clothing from Baby Buggy that had just been sorted and prepared for distribution.  Angelina, a program leader there, shared with us that staff members collected all the clothing that had been floating around the room, washed them all, folded them, re-sorted them, and distributed them to families in need. Needles to say, this is an amazing community of dedicated early education leaders!  If all goes as planned (and nothing seems to be perfectly predictable during this rebuilding process), these two basement classrooms will re-open this month.  To help make the transition a bit easier, Baby Buggy will be providing new art supplies and educational toys, including easels, construction paper, paint, crayons, safety scissors, markers, glitter glue, puzzles, stamps, and books to help fill these completely renovated Head Start classrooms.  We were able to provide needed art supplies for another Head Start in Lower Manhattan located on the site of a large public housing community that was also flooded during Sandy.  As you can see from these photos, the children there are now happily gluing, cutting, coloring, and painting beautiful works of art.  Watching these children work on a large alphabet puzzle Baby Buggy provided is a great reminder of how resilient children can be and with your help, we will continue to help these families put the pieces of their lives back together.