Governor’s Newsletter District 7490 Bergen, Hudson & Passaic Counties New Jersey, USA District Governor November, 2012 Bonnie Sirower Dealing with the Hurricane Sandy Disaster The Casino in the Park in Jersey City, where the PM club meets, was also flooded. My Fellow Rotarians, The District Governor-Elect of District 7500, in Ocean, Bur- At our staff meeting on November 5, which was surprisingly lington and Monmouth Counties found her home in Nor- well attended considering how close it was to Hurricane Sandy, mandy Beach covered in sand and filled with water up to I started out my speech by citing Charles Dickens introduction the attic, and found her refrigerator on top of her car. The to A Tale of Two Cities. “It was the best of times; it was the District Governor Nominee there told me her home in Sea- worst of times.” side Heights was uninhabitable. All of us experienced power When Hurricane Sandy hit our shores between October 28 and outages and lack of communication without Internet or 30, it was definitely the worst of times for our NY and NJ Met- phone for many days, but these were just inconveniences – ropolitan area. We have all seen the devastation wreaked by except to Senior Citizens who could not walk down the the super storm. In the newspapers (and for those among us stairs, or were cold in their homes, or get food because the lucky enough to retain power and cable), we saw scenes of great elevators didn’t work. destruction – Seaside Heights’ famous amusement park roller coaster floating in the sea, Staten Island’s South Shore sub- At our District Staff meeting, in addition to our very special merged, pieces of boardwalk thrown up on the shore and boats guest, Past Rotary International President and Rotary Founda- everywhere along the roads. Homes washed away. Let me share tion Chair Wilf Wilkinson, we had as visitors Joan Vas, the some of the Rotary stories that resulted in the aftermath of the District Governor for District 7500; John Andrews, DG for Dis- hurricane. trict 7640 in Atlantic, Cape May, Salem and Gloucester In Moonachie and Little Ferry in our own District 7490, as you Counties; and Matts Ingemanson from District 7230, en- know, a berm broke along the Hackensack River, shortly en- compassing Bronx, Staten Island, Manhattan and gulfing both towns in water and virtually wrecking thousands Westchester. Each one of our visitors patiently explained of homes and destroying their infrastructure. Schools and li- the extent of the damage that had befallen their areas. That braries in both towns, the ambulance corps building in was definitely the worst of times. Moonachie, the Senior Citizen Center, the Civic Center, (Continued on Page 3, Col. 1) Moonachie’s trailer park – all were washed away. AG Mukesh In this Issue Malkan (Paramus Sunrise Rotary Club) went door to door in Photographs of Hurricane Relief Efforts (Pp. 2, 4 & 6) 2 Little Ferry and reported that waves over six feet had deluged the entire area. What devastation! Mukesh reported that it PRIP Wilkinson Visits BH/R Rotary and Wayne Clubs 7 looked like a war-torn country. Cars were all underwater. Even District 7490 Staff Meeting Devoted to Hurricane Relief 8 now, some of the streets are under two feet of water. District Recognized for Youth Protection Efforts 9 Ruby Tuesday in Support of Military Assistance Center 10 Residents of Hoboken were also swamped with water, some- District 7490 Donates $2,000 to PolioPlus Fund 10 times slick with oil and sewage, and basement apartments may not even be covered by FEMA. On Staten Island, the restaurant Invitation to Dec. District Staff Mtg. & Holiday Party 10 where the South Staten Island Club met was swept out to sea. District Foundation Committee Raises $3,000 11 WD Head Contributions Urged at JC Rotary Meeting 11 All of the towns on Long Island south of Merrick Road were Paramus Rotary on Cardio-Start and Vest Purchase 12 flooded with water. A 17-year old youth exchange student from Scenes from Rotary Foundation Seminar (Pp 13 -14) 13 Brazil, Mateus Laurino, saw the homes of his next two host District 7490 Holds Interact-React Conference 15 families totally destroyed. Jersey City President Sharon Kenya Trip Planned in Support of Maasai Mara School 16 Flynn had to be rescued from her home in Secaucus before YE Students and PDG Joe Laureni at Rotary UN Day 16 the flood waters filled her condominium. GOVERNOR’S NEWSLETTER – DISTRICT 7490, November, 2012 2 Scenes of Hurricane Relief Relief Efforts by Rotarians and Other Volunteers . GOVERNOR’S NEWSLETTER – DISTRICT 7490, November, 2012 3 Letter from the District Governor DGN Calisto Bertin secured warehouses from Paramus’ (Continued from Page 1) Nick Laganella, PDG Emil Geering (both Paramus) and But then, there were the best of times. That was because of Rotarian Andy Topp (Ridgewood AM) where we could store the swift and enthusiastic response from Rotarians all over donated items and use the warehouses as a staging area to our District, all over our country, and indeed, all over the distribute donated goods. We ultimately had two ware- world to express concern for our plight, send supplies and houses on Route 17 in Paramus – one northbound, which donate monies to help restore what has been damaged. even had forklifts that could help unload larger trucks at what used to be the Men’s Warehouse, and one southbound The very first ones to step up to the plate were right here in at what used to be Tower Records. So far, we have had more our own district. Peter Wells (Park Ridge Rotary Club), our than 160 volunteers, many of them not Rotarians, who sort- District Disaster Chair, immediately took over the extraor- ed clothes, blankets, food, toiletries, baby goods, linens, dinary task of coordinating deliveries from trucks from as bedding, toys, etc. for days at both Route 17 warehouses. far away as San Diego. When Peter accepted the role of Dis- Volunteers also offered to drive long distances – some as far trict Disaster Chair almost a year ago, he thought this as Brigantine, NJ or Long Beach, Long Island to deliver the would be a simpler job that might involve just writing some much-needed supplies. Dana Tarello, a resident of North- checks. Little did he know how this storm was going to vale, heard about what we were doing from Fred Campagna change his life and how demanding it would be. Peter has (Paramus Rotary). She immediately arranged a clothing worked tirelessly night and day since the disaster started to and supply drive by the Saturday after the storm. On No- arrange our reception of all of the trucks coming to our dis- vember 13, Dana and her boyfriend hosted a wonderful re- trict and all of the deliveries to the affected areas. Peter also ception, in conjunction with the Northern Valley Rotary worked to recruit volunteers to sort out the thousands of Club, at Biddy O ‘Malley’s, a bar and grill in Northvale. The pounds of donated goods. Janet Sharma, a member of the event raised $1,000 for relief efforts – plus we may have Englewood Rotary and head of the Bergen County Volunteer several new Rotarians joining us. Center, assisted Peter in this endeavor. Peter and I have taken turns participating in VOAD, Volunteer Organiza- Remember Mateus Laurino, the Youth Exchange student tions Assisting in Disasters. Through this organization, we whose host family homes were destroyed? Our own District are able to collaborate with other organizations in the area Secretary, Pat LaRocco and her husband Mike took in providing aid – Red Cross, FEMA, Rebuilding Bergen, NJ Mateus into their own home in Fair Lawn until after the Office on Volunteers and many more. I hope to have a party holidays. Mateus has been adopted by the Fair Lawn Rotary for all of the volunteers in January to thank them (and Club, although he will still be sponsored by the Amityville, maybe we will even attract some new Rotarians who have Long Island Rotary Club. We are still looking for host fami- already demonstrated how much they care.) lies in Fair Lawn for the rest of the year. Mateus came with me to a couple of Rotary Club meetings when I made Gov- Rotary Club of the Palisades’ Rory Sutherland, our District ernor’s visits, and has just started at his new school at Fair Webmaster, made it easy for us to get the word out to eve- Lawn High. We welcome him to our District and we are so ryone. Thanks to Rory, we already had a website in place, grateful that the LaRocco’s have opened their home and www.nynjrotary.org that was initially set up for us to ascer- hearts to him. tain whether people were hearing the radio commercials now airing on CBS Radio. This website became our lifeline At this point, we have had 58 trucks visit our area from all to the world for the entire area. Rory added a Hurricane parts of the country. Trucks came loaded with goods con- Sandy Disaster Aid tab to the website. On Friday, November 9, tributed by Rotarians from Santa Fe, New Mexico, Mary- the website had more than 2,000 visits from people all over the land (the first to arrive), North Dakota, Vermont, Chicago, world. Rory has been updating the website regularly, and has San Diego, Maine, Virginia. Some trucks delivered paper added pictures of both the initial disaster and our response to goods. District 7210 to our north, led by DG Bill Bassett, it.