Tornado Relief: "An Elephant Never Forgets"

Here it is: the post I’ve been stewing over since the day tornados wreaked unholy havoc on Central Alabama. Thankfully, our area was spared, but we spent several hours in our basement that night, and many, many hours in the following days, watching footage of the devastation.
The following morning, I learned that a pod of my extended family that lived in Pleasant Grove had not been heard from, so I spent several hours trying to track them down via their neighbors over The Mighty Facebook. We found the 80-something year old great-aunt, who finally made contact with her sister. She had managed to climb out of the wreckage of her house, and find out that her immediate family down the street was all alive, though some were hospitalized with injuries.

In the following days, Dave and I debated and debated over how we could best help the relief efforts, feeling that we should absolutely do something. Volunteering our time and bodies was not really an option with two young children, so we opted for making a donation. Knowing that one of my favorite places would be doing something disaster-relief related, we waited until we did our regular Saturday shopping to make a final decision of how/what to donate. While at the checkout counter at Publix, debit card in hand, the cashier asked if we’d like to make a donation to the Red Cross. We looked at each other, knowing the pre-determined amount we’d decided on, nodded, and told the cashier to ring it up. It showed up on the receipt as “Southern Storms.” It was that easy.

In the following weeks, I learned of a newborn baby (a cousin of my brother’s girlfriend’s sorority sister – did you follow that?) who was in need. The baby was two weeks old when the storm completely leveled the area where he lived and killed his mother. He is in the care of his grandmother, and he needs things. I happily loaded up a bag of newborn – 3 month sized clothes, an infant tub, baby soap, washcloths, and towels to send his way. I offered a portion of my ever-growing stash of frozen Mommy milk, but by that time he was already taking formula. He was a nursling for the first two weeks of his life (that made my heart hurt just a little bit more).

All of these were ways I felt like I could do something to help someone who’d lost everything.

This tragedy is a long way from over for these families, and there are still things you can do to help. I am once again appealing to your benevolent hearts to make a donation (as you feel led, of course) to help someone. This time there’s something (tangible) in it for you!

Once I returned to the office and life there got back to some sort of normal, one of my co-workers called me to her desk one morning to show me something. Never knowing how that scenario is going to go down, I was shocked and moved when she showed me this.

It’s a charcoal sketch (Much better in person, I’ve seen the original!) done by another of our co-workers, Holly. She’s an artist. A real one. I’m not sure why she works where I do. She says she just started sketching in the time following the tornado, and this is what came out of her. She decided she wanted to do something with it to raise money for tornado relief in Tuscaloosa. She considered donating it to the University to auction, but decided she could raise more money if she sold prints. I told her to let me know when she had all the details worked out because I know all kinds of Bama fans that will need one of these for their man caves, Alabama rooms, spouses, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, etc. All proceeds from the sale of the prints will go to Hands on Birmingham, Disaster Relief of West Alabama, and T-Town Paws.

UPDATED: If you want a print of “An Elephant Never Forgets”, email Tornadoreliefinalabama@gmail.com.
11 x 14 print - $25

18 x 24 print - $50

T-shirts are also a possibility, but the details of that are still in the works. Prices include shipping.

If you Facebook, check out her page: Tornado Relief in Alabama.

UPDATED: Also, check out the website: An Elephant Never Forgets.
UPDATED AGAIN: To say that Holly's website now has a PayPal link so you can truly order online!