Fifty Derby High School students will be delivering a busload of supplies and manpower to Rockaway, Queens Friday in order to help residents whose homes were gutted during Hurricane Sandy.
They’ve collected food, water, batteries, cleaning supplies, brooms, shovels, garbage bags and more.
A chartered bus is scheduled to leave Derby High School on Nutmeg Avenue at 7 a.m.
The Rockaways is a peninsula jutting out from Long Island. It was devastated by Sandy. Hundreds of homes were destroyed by fire. Thousands more were flooded. At least four people died.
To get an idea of what the storm did to the Rockaways, stop what you’re doing right now and give your full attention to this three-minute video.
Derby High School Principal Greg Gaillard’s parents, Moira and Fred, live there.
So does his sister, Joanna Bodnar, along with her husband, Tony, and their two kids, Olivia and Emma.
Gaillard lived in the Rockaways until the eighth grade. Then the family decided to move away to Long Island. In typical New Yorker fashion, mom and dad moved back to the Rockaways, their old stomping ground, after Gaillard finished high school.
Hurricane Sandy was a storm unlike anything that has ever been seen in New York City.
“My parents lost all their possessions in their first-floor apartment,” Gaillard said.
Gaillard’s sister’s home had seven feet of water in the basement.
“You could see the water line on the light bulb hanging from the ceiling,” he said.
Gaillard’s father, Fred, is 70. He insisted on staying in his damaged home. Gaillard got him a generator.
“He stayed and my sister is staying with friends in Long Island because she has little ones. But every day they go back and clean up,” he said.
Since Sandy hit, there has been a growing movement — especially online — to draw attention to the devastation in the Rockaways.
A number of websites were created to organize volunteers. Those websites include Rockaway Help and its Facebook page.
For Gaillard, there may have been a sense of helplessness, at first, due to the sheer volume of damage from the storm.
“I’m concerned about my dad. He’s 70 but he thinks he is 20. I want him to be OK. You just don’t know what you can do,” he said.
Then, six days ago, he posted a message under the Derby High School Twitter account:
“I grew up in Rockaway, Queens and my parents are still there, they lost everything. Field trip to help, pay it forward? Anyone interested?”
That Tweet gathered steam among Derby students and the larger community. Then Gaillard distributed a letter which eventually made its way to the Valley Indy and the Valley Indy’s Facebook page.
“The kids went with it. It just blew up,” the principal said.
It all culminated Thursday evening with dozens of people dropping off cash and supplies for the students to deliver to Rockaway.
They even have T‑shirts and a slogan — “Rise Up Rockaway,” a variation on Bruce Springsteen’s instant classic tune.
This “Storify” below shows Tweets documenting the devastation in the Rockaways, interspersed with Tweets from Gaillard organizing Derby students online.
Story continues below.
[View the story “Derby High School Mobilizes To Help The Rockaways” on Storify]“I have an army of awesome kids from a caring community,” Gaillard said.
But the Derby High School juniors and seniors going to New York Friday won’t just be riding a bus and dropping off supplies. They’ll be part of an organized neighborhood cleanup.
Water from the storm surge inundated first-floor dwellings everywhere.
The Derby students will be cleaning and dragging destroyed personal items from homes to the curb so the items can be properly disposed.
“We’ll be bagging everything in garbage bags, using shop vacs, sweeping sand and helping to distribute water,” Gaillard said.