Coney Island – Home of the Mermaid Parade and Mermaid Manor Home

November 12, 2012 by karmanation

We Have To Keep Going Following our last relief efforts at the Rockaways last weekend, we arrived this past Sunday at Coney Island, Brooklyn – another devastated area hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. This is a very diversified community where mermaids and mermen, young and old, who have always cherished their boardwalk of sideshows and other local landmarks are left displaced after Sandy. Nathan’s Famous Hotdogs and the old Cyclone rollercoaster were spared, but two blocks from the boardwalk, the […]

Categories: Relief Missions, Volunteers • Tags: Brooklyn, Coney Island, Hurricane Sandy, Mermaid Manor Home, Volunteers

Grassroots Warriors

November 7, 2012 by karmanation

It’s the people on the front line and on the ground, the kindhearted souls who are physically contributing to the relief efforts – they are the ones feeding the hungry and the cold. The old and weak are stranded, some in their dark and freezing homes, some in their uninhabitable apartment buildings. Government funds can’t reach them, and they are not going to be able to make it to the relief centers anytime soon … We need to get out […]

Categories: Relief Missions, Volunteers • Tags: Grassroots, Rescue Rockaways, Volunteers

A World Away

November 6, 2012 by karmanation

  Night dawns, we realized that the Cross Bay Bridge is the threshold our volunteers would love to cross more often, while the stranded people of the Rockaways would love to escape so they wouldn’t have to return to their frigid, destroyed homes. Photos by Betsey Low and Brian Schoenberger

Categories: Relief Missions • Tags: Darkness, Hurricane Sandy, Queens, Rockaways

Go Navy

November 6, 2012 by karmanation

As my group and I trekked with provisions to pass out door-to-door, we ended up on the beach where a naval company dispatched from a naval ship anchored in a distance, literally emerged from the ocean and bivouacked directly on the beach. The naval officer I spoke with said that their hearts were heavy when they got here, as pending authorization prevented them from proceeding with recovery efforts. All the funds that are trickling in and supplies being dropped off at various relief […]

Categories: Relief Missions • Tags: Navy, Queens, Rockaways

Week 1 Post Hurrican Sandy

November 6, 2012 by karmanation

A group of 50+ volunteers, with the little gas that we have left and our eager hearts. As the route into the Rockaway beach areas came to a halt, the break lights in front of us were like warning signs for what our eyes were not prepared to see. The under-reported scenes become more heartbreaking as we inched slowly towards to epicenter of destruction. The devastation ripples through the entire town, block by block, pavement is hidden under piles of debris and […]

Categories: Relief Missions • Tags: Hurricane Sandy, Queens, Rockaways