There are many hands and hearts in the little town of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. Hands that wave with a friendly ‘hello’ and thousands of hearts inside these 18 square miles that beat with a love for this town and are full with compassion during times of struggle.
We all watched earlier this month as Hurricane Dorian slowly churned in the Atlantic and hoped that the storm would no more than graze us as it moved northeast in our direction. We saw the destruction left in its wake as it battered the Bahamas and we were struck by the footage that accompanied the headlines in the storm’s aftermath. We clasped our hands in prayer and hoped with our hearts for a quick recovery.
But then our attention turned toward another direction. Dorian swept itself out to sea and dissipated. The Bahamas disappeared from the headlines. Our hands became busy with other things and our hearts were again occupied with matters closer to home – but not for ‘all hands and hearts’ in Mattapoisett.
You’ve probably driven past the nondescript office along Route 6 in Mattapoisett a hundred times, perhaps even during the week after Dorian devastated the Bahamas, and saw the sign “All Hands and Hearts” without realizing its significance. Regardless, situated in that small, inconspicuous plaza is a hub of international relief efforts that is mobilizing hands and hearts from all over the world to send to the Bahamas just as the rest of us have nearly stopped thinking about it.
The non-profit organization All Hands and Hearts has its headquarters in Mattapoisett and is overseen by Mattapoisett resident and CEO Erik Dyson, Dyson and his team are the first-responders of sorts whenever disaster strikes somewhere on the globe. When a natural disaster devastates an area, Dyson and his team organize the deployment of some 50 to 60 volunteers every day to survey and assess the damage. Their disaster response is the critical first step after the storm for a place like the Abacos Islands, the region hit the hardest on the island chain nation of the Bahamas.
Last week, the volunteers made their initial assessment of the islands to ascertain the areas that need the most help and how to begin to provide support. As Dyson put it, All Hands and hearts “arrive early and stay late,” sometimes even years after the impact. Disaster response happens in phases, said Dyson. Phase 1 is the “cleaning up, mucking and gutting, removing debris…
“Which, of course, there’s lots of debris to be dealt with,” said Dyson.
There’s tarping of roofs, schools, and medical posts, “And, really, just listening to the community on where the short-term goals are,” said Dyson. And it’s often done without clean running water or reliable electricity amidst relative chaos and shock. These volunteers’ hands do the dirty work, the cleanup.
The initial team figures out where rescue planes can land when airports are badly damaged, and where they can set up a base of operations to welcome more volunteers – dozens that arrive every day from different countries, including the U.S. The team works with local NGOs to understand the areas of highest need.
“Based upon the needs we hear, then we send an assessment team to do a detailed outline of the scope of work, the budget of the materials needed,” said Dyson. The cleanup phase alone can take months, sometimes three to four and, in the case of the Bahamas post-Dorian, four to five months, even.
“It’s such an extreme impact level of damage,” said Dyson. “But then we’ll transition to long-term recovery beyond the ‘taking-apart’ phase – the phase of rebuilding.”
The Abacos Islands will need schools, houses, medical posts, community centers, evacuation centers, all its community infrastructure rebuilt after Dorian. And there are still other devastated areas – Puerto Rico, the Florida panhandle, Mozambique, the Philippines, and Nepal, to name a few – where that rebuilding is still taking place years later.
All Hands and Hearts will likely spend two years rebuilding in an area affected by a natural disaster. The goal in The Bahamas is to help at least 2,500 people by mobilizing a minimum of 1,000 volunteers. But to succeed, it will also need to raise around $5 million. It takes a lot of money to rebuild, and in the case of the Bahamas, an island nation, it’s already expensive to import building materials even without the added disruption of the supply chain.
Mattapoisett is where it begins with the help of the local hands and hearts the organization employs at its headquarters, the people that perform the administrative duties, financial matters, human resources, and public outreach. Sometimes, though, it’s the local people who arrive at ground zero to assess, like one seasoned “logistics guy” from New Bedford that has assisted in many assignments, said Dyson. This one, however, was different. “He was struck by just the absolute destruction,” Dyson said.
Right now, there are no operating gas stations, no baseline infrastructure, nothing.
“It’s still really slow getting started because it’s – there’s just nothing there,” said Dyson. “It’s not just shut down, it’s gone.”
In disasters like this, about 80 percent of the funding to rebuild is raised during the first 60 days before interest fades. “It’s already happening,” Dyson lamented. “Initial interest is high… but now, a week later, it’s fallen off the news…This is something that will take five or more years for the community to get back to normal and we’re already in week two and we’re seeing a huge drop off in interest.”
This goes not just for money, but for volunteers, too. There was a huge interest in volunteering, said Dyson, with around 5,000 signing up, but they will need about 1,000 steady volunteers a year in the Bahamas. “It’s always a challenge,” said Dyson, when that interest starts to wane months into the efforts.
This is where the rest of the hands and hearts of Mattapoisett come in – the volunteers and people of the Abacos need your hands; they need your hearts.
Please considering making a donation to All Hands and Hearts, or consider taking a chance on volunteering. No skills are required, the group will teach you everything. You can make a donation or apply to volunteer (it’s a rather quick process) by visiting their website www.allhandsandhearts.org.
Although water, food, and clothing drives are often a response to an effort such as this, monetary donations or volunteering are the best ways to help. It’s expensive to ship material goods abroad and ineffective compared to the power of an express donation of money, of any amount.
Dyson urges his neighbors to follow the organizations efforts by visiting the website or signing up for updates. “Also, please think about other places with impacts that aren’t obvious on the front pages, but are affected,” said Dyson. “Those people need our help.”
By Jean Perry