Support Children Affected by Hurricane Sandy

Dear Friends,

It is a privilege for me to thank you for responding with such compassion in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. The support you provided has made it possible for us to stand by children
whose lives were overturned in a single day.

Sandy is a story about great loss, but also about even greater resiliency. What struck me most is
how people coped − from a family that lost everything but was still grateful for having each other
to a teenage boy who lent a hand at one of our Child-Friendly Spaces while schools were closed
as a way to deal with his displacement. 

Our goal has been to bolster that resiliency. From providing food and blankets to setting up
Child-Friendly Spaces in shelters and supplying schools with educational materials, your contributions touched lives in many ways in the weeks after the storm.

We’ve helped child care and community centers resume programming and provided our signature
Journey of Hope program to support children’s and caregivers’ emotional recovery. To date, our
efforts have reached more than 53,000 people, including 39,570 children.

But Save the Children is going one step further. Hurricane Sandy made it clear that we can never be too prepared for emergencies. Today, 90% of American children live in communities at risk of natural disasters. 

Every workday, the safety of nearly 68 million U.S. children is in the hands of school officials and caregivers while parents are on the job. The lesson Sandy drove home is that it is always the poorest families that are hardest hit − those who are least able to withstand the blow of a disaster. While we need to focus our emergency preparedness work to reach all children, we especially need to pay attention to the poorest of communities where there are few or no resources to help evacuate, rebuild or recover.

Thanks to your compassion, families affected by Hurricane Sandy are on a path to recovery.

How You Can Help

Please support Save the Children’s global mission. Your tax-deductible gift gives children in the U.S. and around the world what every child deserves – a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When disaster strikes, we put children's needs first. We advocate for and achieve large-scale change for children. We save children's lives.

Please keep children in your thoughts for a bright new year.

http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/save-the-children/

Have a wonderful holiday season.

Happy New Year!

Links:

• Save the Children Global Action Fund

This is our final report for the "Support Children Affected by Hurricane Sandy” project. Your generous support allowed Save the Children to immediately deploy teams to some of the hardest hit areas following Hurricane Sandy’s destructive hit to the east coast. 

Save the Children’s Post-disaster Immediate Response Programs Reached More Than 43,000 Survivors and Included:

• Emergency care for 1,485 children in 16 shelters through our Child-Friendly Spaces program
• Distributions of supplemental feeding for children in shelters (equivalent to 15,545 healthy meals), in response to the fact that children were receiving less than 900 calories per day during the initial six days because there was not enough food in shelters
• Distribution of items, including: winter clothing, diapers, infant hygiene materials, and other vital supplies
• Assistance for 18 school and child care sites to support their ability to reopen and start serving children again

Months after Sandy devastated the East Coast, Save the Children’s response and recovery teams are still in New York and New Jersey, working with families, communities, and partner organizations to provide long-term assistance to help families return to normalcy, send their children to school, and have access to child care.

Save the Children’s Long-Term Hurricane Sandy Response Includes:

• Child Care and School Recovery – collaborating with large child-focused agencies to coordinate child care and school resources and recovery efforts
• Psychosocial Support: Journey of Hope Program – building strategic partnerships with mental health agencies and state agencies help children and adults cope, build on their natural resiliency, and strengthen their network of social support—to help them recover from the fear, loss, and stresses related to Hurricane Sandy
• Advocacy and Strengthening Child-Focused Preparedness – a critical role for Save the Children is to improve the ability of New York and New Jersey—and the U.S. in general—to better protect children when disasters strike

Thank you again for your support. Please consider supporting one of Save the Children's other projects. You can find a complete list here: https://www.globalgiving.org/donate/832/save-the-children-federation/.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Save the Children rushed to the aid of girls and boys in hard-hit New Jersey and New York.

One of the children struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy is 4-year-old Didi. When the worst of the storm was over, her family tried to go home, but the heat wasn’t working. It was just too cold for the little girl, so they came to a shelter where Save the Children provides relief services.

Didi participates in our signature Child Friendly Spaces – safe areas in the shelters where kids can begin to recover from disaster-induced emotional distress. Our trained professionals offer support and structured play with age-appropriate activities, such as arts and crafts, jump ropes, books, toys and board games. We’ve helped children in Child Friendly Spaces after many other disasters, including the Haiti Earthquake, Joplin Tornadoes, Hurricane Isaac and Japan Tsunami.

What’s more, we’re providing parents with the supplies they need to help keep kids clean and healthy, such as diapers, hygiene supplies and nutritious snacks. To help keep children warm, we delivered cozy blankets, onesies, jammies, hats and mittens throughout the affected areas.

Hopefully, Didi will be able to go home soon and won’t have to spend the holidays in a shelter.

by Penny Crump, New York, NY

Hurricane Sandy took almost everything from Marisol. Fleeing her home with little more than clothes on her back, she waited out the storm at the safety of her Aunt’s house. Her mom, Rachel, stayed behind to protect their meager belongings from looters in a very rough neighborhood in New York.

Rachel had been told that they would be safe in their fourth floor apartment. But the winds and rain proved too much for their rundownbuilding.

The roof collapsed around her, destroying most of their belongings and killing Marisol’s little kitten.

“I haven’t told Marisol about her kitten yet, she’s been through too much already,” said Rachel. “I’m relieved she was at her Aunt’s when it happened.”

I spoke with many other families like Mariol’s who lived in apartments that have been condemned due to storm damage. They have no place to go home to – crowded shelters are their only refuge until temporary housing programs get fully up and running.

It’s in these shelters that Save the Children offers our Child-Friendly Spaces program. It gives girls and boys a safe area where they can play, have fun and express themselves under the supervision of caring, trained adults. It helps kids build self-esteem, work through difficult emotions and increase their ability to “bounce back”. 

Rachel was relieved to see Marisol having fun with the other children in our program. “I am just overwhelmed to see my daughter playing and happy again,” she said while choking back tears.

I told her, “It’s ok, we’ll get through this together”.

Hopefully, Marisol will feel safe and secure again soon. Kids like Marisol need caring people to support Save the Children’s response efforts. Please give generously to our Hurricane Sandy Relief fund.

Links:

• Hurricane Sandy Information