Card Drive Aims to Cheer Up New Yorkers
St Louis Post-DispatchRenee Stovsky, December 2001
“We just stay angry so we can cope every day.”
That e-mail from a friend in New York City was the impetus for a holiday card campaign, “Hugs & Kisses,” that has captured the imagination of St. Louisans and should result in hundreds of New Yorkers receiving friendly holiday greetings during their time of trial.
The campaign’s founder, physical therapist Debbie Lavender, 45, was at her home in Kirkwood watching television early on Sept. 11 when she saw an airplane crash into the World Trade Center. From her sister Nancy Gorman, a nurse who works about a mile from Ground Zero, she heard stories of how ordinary New Yorkers were coping. Then came the email from her New York friend. “All of a sudden I realized what an emotional toll the World Trade Center attack had taken on New Yorkers. I could see the trauma in their everyday lives,” she said.
That’s when she decided to fulfill a community project requirement for an adult education group she works with, Landmark Education, by dedicating herself to the ordinary working people of New York City. “I knew there was an outpouring of support for the victims, their families and the rescue workers – all the blood donations, the money the Red Cross had collected,” says Lavender. “But I wanted regular New Yorkers to know that they also were in the thoughts and prayers of the nation. I didn’t want them to feel they had to ‘stay angry to cope’.”
So Lavender, with help from a friend, Nancy Quigle of Spanish Lake, hit upon the idea of St. Louisans sending holiday greeting cards - Hanukkah cards, Christmas cards, Kwanzaa cards, New Year’s cards – to New Yorkers. She passed out some fliers, and her employer, Pro Rehab of Florissant, offered to serve as a collection site. A television station reported on the project, and soon Schnuck Markets offered its area stores as collection sites. Since then, St. Louisans from schoolchildren to senior citizens have contributed either handmade or store-bought cards to the project.
As of Wednesday, more than 1,000 cards had been collected. Lavender, a Connecticut native, had planned to take the cards with her when she flies to New York for the holidays on Dec. 20 and then give them out at banks, office buildings, coffee shops and such on Dec. 21. But now she is looking for another way to transport the hundreds of cards.
“So far, Crown Linen Services has donated 100 laundry bags to carry the cards. Southwest Airlines is looking into the logistics. We’re thinking about a rental truck to transport the cards from the airport to the city.”
Reprinted from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 13, 2001, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.