Occupy Sandy: Onetime protesters find new cause
NEW YORK (AP) - You might be surprised at what has become a lauded and effective relief organization for victims of Superstorm Sandy: Occupy Wall Street.
The social media savvy that helped Occupy protesters create a grass-roots global movement last year - one that ultimately collapsed under its leaderless format - is proving to be a strength as members fan out across New York to deliver aid including hot meals, medicine and blankets.
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, little was accomplished in the ways of policy change, and Occupy became largely a punch line. 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."
The social media savvy that helped Occupy protesters create a grass-roots global movement last year - one that ultimately collapsed under its leaderless format - is proving to be a strength as members fan out across New York to deliver aid including hot meals, medicine and blankets.
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, little was accomplished in the ways of policy change, and Occupy became largely a punch line. 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."
This is not "Occupy" doing this. This is a GOOD group of people who are banding together to help others in need. This is the American way. I despise the fact that the term "occupy" is being linked to these decent citizensdoing a good deed. Nice job!
@wondering many of the original Occupiers were these type of people. The problem wasn't the organized ones, it was the junkies and freeloaders who hijacked them and took advantage of what they were doing. My guess is that the anarchy tards, malcontents and junkies are nowhere to be found here.
@Playanekes   Perhaps. If this is the case, then maybe a new name for this "charitable organization" is called for since the term "occupy" has such negative connotations due to the druggies and freeloaders.
I would sleep on a snowbank naked and eat roadkill before I accepted a single thing from these America-hating pukes.
 @Derek2mk Have at it, because with your attitude no one will want to help you anyway. The kind of help you need is not food, clothing or medicine anyway.
 @Derek2mk The problem is, you're equating the original group that had good intentions with the idiots who hijacked the name to basically whine about wanting free stuff. And at least THEY are doing good. Or are you out there on a wifi connection helping those on SI that have been forgotten by FEMA since the election is over.
@Derek2mk ...he says, from a cozy room or over a warm cup of coffee, with the luxury of heat, electricity, clean water, food, medicine...
Finally!!!!!!!!! They have done some good.
Good for Occupy..! Â Glad to hear that they're channeling some of that restless energy into a constructive and much needed activity..! Â :-)
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I think almost anytime you have people helping each other, it's going to be more productive ~ and certainly faster ~ than relying solely on the gov't... Â the red tape in gov't bureaucracies often tends to get in the way of efficient help... Â This is kind of a '"time-warp" back to the earlier days of our country... people helped each other more because the gov't wasn't developed (overgrown) enough to get involved in such projects. Â Â So if a neighbor's house or barn burned down, everybody went and helped put out the fire, clean everything up, and rebuild, because you never knew whose house or barn might be next... and the only people you could rely on for help were your neighbors...
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In a way, it's sad that we moved beyond that, because we lost something very special when we did...
Wow, it's almost like having a job!
This is cool, and this is what Occupy should be all about.
 @lee986321Â
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Honestly...that is exactly what they were doing in Portland also; establishing their own cooperative community. The fact that they had experience allows them to organize in New York now.
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If there were a disaster here in Portland; those same people previously associated with OWS would mobilize here also.
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Their politics haven't changed anymore than their tactics; they are the change they wish to see in the world.
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And; BTW --- If there were a contract involved then there would be a hundred contractors out there just like when the hurricane hit in New Orleans and nothing worked but everything cost lots of money and people were randomly shot by the police.
 @Icarus Yeah, I heard about that disaster, it was a disaster on all fronts.
 As For Occupy, we might need that assistance come sooner then later, the way weather has been shaping up of late, it is not going to be a pleasant year this year.
 I have a real bad feeling about thsi winter, and it is just starting.
Thankfully the overall occupy movement has collapsed and while this is a nice aspect of some folks who say they are occupy it is not indicative of what the occupy movement was all about.
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Actually I was never sure what the movement was all about so I guess I can't say that this is not indicative of what it was about.
@RalphCramden Thats OK the occupiers didn't know what the movement was all about either. Come to think of it neither did I.
@oodathunked honestly, though, you never actually asked them, did you? I did. I went into Chapman Park after jury duty and talked to many of them to find out their deal. I know what the Occupy movement was about, and you don't because odds are the only thing you know about it was what your selected media sources told you. Before the whack jobs all showed up, the point was fairly clear.
 @Playanekes  @oodathunked @whirledworldÂ
I did go down there for some business and did talk to the occupy folks. In all I talked to about 10 or so.
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I got 10 different answers on what they were all about and some of the responses were pretty disjointed. It ranged from protesting bad cops to free homes for everyone.
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The anarchists were of course the weirdest and the most aggressive. They didn't want anyone in charge and no one telling them what to do but wanted a regular government check from the rich. That is the summary of the group of 6 that I talked to.
 @Playanekes  @oodathunked Playnekes speaks the truth on this subject, because I had a similar experience and reached the same conclusion, as did other folks I know from all political stripes who were not part of Occupy, but curious enough to go investigate in person for themselves away from the talking heads on TV .