THUNDER BAY – In many ways, bright sunshine and time take away the urgency of an emergency. In Thunder Bay, the flood that happened at the end of May might seem like it is a long ways away. It is not.
People impacted by the flood are still being affected. Their homes, especially in the East End of the city remain awaiting needed repairs. Many of the residents are without insurance. In many cases that was not by choice but rather because they could not get insurance because of the area being flooded before.
The need is there, but the goal of $5,000,000.00 (five million dollars) is only approaching the million dollar mark. When you consider that much of that money, a quarter of it was raised in one day with the radio-a-thon that Dougall Media sponsored, and that the huge initial outpouring of help came early in June, we have a LONG ways to go in order to meet the goal.
Have you forgotten how the flood impacted our city? Damien Gilbert (D-man) shares a video shot that week.
Of concern is that if the goal isn’t met, the matching money from the provincial and federal government may simply not come. That would leave our city with residents left out in the cold.
Moving now, rather than later is also a concern. Likely by November and December we are going to see many of the charitable efforts in our community struggling to reach their goals. Thunder Bay has 120,000 people in the district. There are only so many dollars that people can contribute to causes.
The impact of the flood is likely to generate a domino effect in our community as donor fatigue sets in. There are ways that we can reach the goal – without over stretching anyone’s budget.
Do you get your daily fix of coffee from one of the local coffee chains? Imagine if each time you did that, you rounded up the price by $1? You could make a painless $5 per week, or $10 per week contribution to the Flood Relief effort?
Heck if you want, there are many amazing causes across the city where a small contribution would make a huge difference. If you read how a donut saved a life on NNL, it might spur you toward making giving help toward real solutions a part of your daily routine.
However right now, there is a great deal of attention focused on the flood relief, and helping there is a community effort worthy of sharing across the city, the province, and across the country.
So the challenge is simple, there is a task at hand. We can either get to it, or we can do nothing.
Doing nothing is not an option. So are you and your friends ready?