Sunday was one of those weird timing days. My partner at StuffKidsWrite.com, Chase McFadden, was preparing a post for Monday morning. The submission was a humorous letter (to a butterfly) that was written by the son of our blogging friend, Amy Stevens, who lives in Joplin, Missouri.
I likely needn’t say more.
Most of you know that parts of Joplin were demolished by a tornado, including Amy’s neighborhood. If you watched CNN coverage, you saw Amy’s street. Thankfully, she and her family are safe. Her vehicles, possessions, and house, however, are not.
Chase and I considered pulling the piece on Stuff Kids Write, but we didn’t. By the time we found out the tornado affected Amy, the post was already up. In her email to us Monday morning, Amy said seeing her son’s piece put a much welcome smile on her face.
Please go read that post from yesterday. It’s a letter that Amy’s son (a second grader) wrote to a butterfly. Given the catastrophic events that have happened, it’s possible to read it metaphorically. The people of Joplin are no longer “warm and cozy in [their] cocoons.” Click here to go to it.
If you want to know more about Amy and her family’s situation, she posted yesterday on her blog, Life in the Trenches. Her words bring the trauma home.
I would also like to encourage the blogging community and my readers to help Amy and her community out. In Amy’s words:
We are really grateful but a bit logistically challenged — we have no mailbox any longer and no clear access to our front door…Two of our vehicles are upside down and under trees so we can’t really transport clothes/books or other needed items. I do, however, have a PayPal account under my email amy4kde@aol.com. I know people would like to help and Joplin is so badly in need. It’s like a war zone — hard to even believe what I’m seeing in our town is real. My husband and I would distribute any donations to our community — buy water for people working in our neighborhood (which was destroyed), give some to children’s haven (an emergency shelter for children), we’ll load up on diapers and formula and shoes while in Springfield to drop off at the shelters … anything we can think to do. We are extremely fortunate — there are still people lost and possibly trapped.
I’ll distribute any donations throughout the community. I know I keep posting this but it’s so bad here. We’re totally overwhelmed and surrounded by devastating loss. It’s like something out of an apocalypse movie. More storms possibly tonight and Joplin’s warning sirens are down so we’re crossing fingers hoping for no tornadoes.
Please, if you can give, do so. If you don’t know how to use Paypal, drop me an email: ironicmom (at) gmail (dot) com. I can walk you through it.
We continue to send our thoughts and prayers to Amy, her family, and the people of Joplin.