New York – Occupy Sandy: Onetime Protesters Find New Cause

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    In this Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012 photo, at YANA (You are Never Alone), an outreach center that is currently housing Occupy Sandy, a volunteer aid organization in the Rockaway Park neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York, volunteers and those seeking assistance stand outside. Along with other groups, Occupy Sandy has sprung up in an effort to bring goods and services to people left in need in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)New York – The social media savvy that helped Occupy Wall Street protesters create a grass-roots global movement last year is proving to be a strength in the wake of Superstorm Sandy as members and organizers of the group fan out across New York to deliver aid including hot meals, medicine and blankets.

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    They’re the ones who took food and water to Glenn Nisall, a 53-year-old resident of Queens’ hard-hit and isolated Rockaway section who lost power and lives alone, with no family nearby.

    “I said: `Occupy? You mean Occupy Wall Street?'” he said. “I said: `Awesome, man. I’m one of the 99 percent, you know?'”

    Occupy Wall Street was born in late 2011 in a lower Manhattan plaza called Zuccotti Park, with a handful of protesters pitching tents and vowing to stay put until world leaders offered a fair share to the “99 percent” who don’t control the globe’s wealth.

    The world heard the cry as that camp grew and inspired other ones around the globe. Ultimately, though, the movement collapsed under its leaderless format, and Occupy became largely forgotten. But core members, and a spirit, have persisted and found a new cause in Occupy Sandy.

    It started at St. Jacobi Church in Brooklyn the day after the storm, where Occupiers set up a base of operations and used social media like Twitter and Facebook to spread the word.

    There is a sense of camaraderie reminiscent of Zuccotti, as young people with scruffy beards and walkie-talkies plan the day’s activities. Donations come in by the truckload and are sorted in the basement, which looks like a clearinghouse for every household product imaginable, from canned soup and dog food to duvet covers.

    “This is young people making history,” said Mark Naison, a professor at Fordham University who has been studying Occupy Wall Street. “Young people who are refusing to let people suffer without putting themselves on the line to do something about it.”

    Now the group has dozens of relief centers across the city and a stream of volunteers who are shuttled out to the most desperate areas. It is partnering with local community and volunteer organizations.

    A recent post on Occupy Sandy’s Facebook page announced: “Attention! If anyone in Rockaway needs to have their basement pumped, please contact Suzanne Hamalak at suzybklyn(at)aol.com. Her family wants to help and have industrial pumps…they will do it for free…..”

    In Rockaway Park, Occupier Diego Ibanez, 24, has been sleeping on the freezing floor of a community center down the street from a row of charred buildings destroyed by a fire.

    “You see a need and you fulfill it,” he explained. “There’s not a boss to tell you that you can’t do this or you can’t do that. Zuccotti was one of the best trainings in how to mobilize so quickly.”

    There is little public transportation in the neighborhood, where most people still don’t have power and many homes were wrecked. Occupy has supplied residents with hot meals, batteries and blankets. Medics and nurses knock on doors to check on the elderly.

    At one Occupy outpost in Rockaway, residents wandered in recently off the garbage-strewn streets looking for medicine.

    They lined up in an ice-cold abandoned store that had been hastily transformed into a makeshift pharmacy. Gauze bandages and bottles of disinfectant were piled on tables behind a tattered curtain.

    “I think we wouldn’t be able to survive without them,” said Kathleen Ryan, who was waiting for volunteers to retrieve her diabetes medication, stamping her feet on the plywood floor to keep warm. “This place is phenomenal. This community. They’ve helped a great deal.”

    Is this Occupy Wall Street’s finest hour? In the church basement, Carrie Morris paused from folding blankets into garbage bags and smiled at the idea.

    “We always had mutual aid going on,” she said. “It’s a big part of what we do. That’s the idea, to help each other. And we want to serve as a model for the larger society that, you know, everybody should be doing this.”


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    14 Comments
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    Barryfrombrooklyn
    Barryfrombrooklyn
    11 years ago

    Occupy rocks!
    More power to them!

    11 years ago

    Kudos to these occupiers!

    huvsa
    huvsa
    11 years ago

    No, occupy does not “rock.” They distribute propaganda.

    This is beyond insidious, because they are — on the surface — providing a service. In Zuccotti Park (Mayor Bloomberg, how did you not find a way to force them out) they were an eyesore and responsible for destroying at least one business, that is, Milk Street Cafe, a kosher establishment on Wall Street.

    Be-ware. These guys are up to no good.

    P.S. I imagine there are many Jews in there, since assimilated Jews search for meaning … I wish Chabad would occupy Occupy Sandy for a few hours.

    iamoverhere
    iamoverhere
    11 years ago

    get ready for……
    rape, more looting, drugs, the towns becoming public bathrooms, if you thought it was a mess now, just wait till these thugs show up and make it home

    Sherree
    Sherree
    11 years ago

    Kol Hakovod to anyone who rolls up their sleeves and helps others in this time of need. The GOVERNMENT ignored Far Rockaway and the Five Towns. They clearly pointed out that the Jews take care of their own and they don’t need our assistance. We can be outraged by this or we can recognize the compliment!!!

    I choose to recognize the compliment!!! I feel saddened and concerned for those who do NOT have, know or understand the love and devotion that stems from “you are your brother’s keeper”. Mi Kamocha Yisroel? “Ein” Kamocha Yisroel!

    rationalman
    rationalman
    11 years ago

    don’t bed with the devil….you just don’t understand the funding and the cause that “occupy” is after. would you feel the same way id the nazi party was giving the funding to the occupy cause? you may not realize it but the funding is by a group or groups that are just as insidious to our moral and economic values. to say they are a group of great people only shows the level of your ignorance as to what this group is really after!

    pickythinker
    pickythinker
    11 years ago

    Finally some good came out of this mess.