Just Do It

 

With 24 hours to fill, the cable channels eventually serve up the full spectrum of human behavior, from the hapless to the heroic, from the saddening to the stoic.

We at Ingram’s and you in your businesses don’t have all day to fill. You are used to do doing things quickly and efficiently and, in this case, incredibly generously.

When the accounting firm Meara, King & Co. and Ingram’s Magazine teamed up to create the KC Katrina Relief Fund, we never expected the response we received. Within a couple of days, the amount of awareness and money we raised for the American Red Cross surpassed our best hopes, and it is still coming in.

The Red Cross will need all the help it can get. So will the Salvation Army and all the other armies of compassion serving on the front lines of this disaster. America has a history of voluntary help going back to the birth of the nation, and that tradition endures. We have seen it in the Kansas City response to Katrina, and we see it in the disaster area itself.

Our colleagues at New Orleans CityBusiness have given us a good bird’s eye view of how resourceful people can be in a time of crisis. They tell us that, despite overwhelming obstacles, they continued to work right through the storm and its aftermath. Nearly all of their staff had property damage, and some lost their homes, but they had a job to do, and they did it.

“As it turns out,” CityBusiness publisher Mark Singletary reports, “the best of disaster plans is rendered useless when the telecommunications systems—all of them—are knocked out. If you can’t talk to each other, and can’t find your people, you definitely are limited in what you can do.”

That much said, they immediately set up their operation with The Daily Record—their Baltimore affiliate—and also established an office in Baton Rouge, thanks to the help of our colleagues at Baton Rouge Business Report. “We missed a couple of publishing days for our construction daily,” Singletary admits, “but we have no intention of missing any further editions, and we are seeking, and finding, alternative ways of getting our information to readers.”

They are also deeply gratified by the outpouring of assistance and offers of support from other publishers. It is this combination of outside support and internal grit that will get the New Orleans area and that region back on its feet.

The KC Katrina Relief Fund has been established not only to assist in raising necessary funds for the hurricane victims and helping donors administrate such but also, by funneling donations through one source, to help the American Red Cross and other agencies do their job more efficiently.

We at Ingram’s and Meara, King & Co. have received hundreds of emails and calls on the Friday preceding Labor Day alone from sources all over the region and nation. Some are supporting our efforts with contributions. Others are explaining what they’ve done and plan to do to help. And some are sharing strategies as to ways we all can more effectively and efficiently help. The Greater Kansas City Community Foundation offered to help us manage our fund on a no fee basis. The galleries at First Friday in the Crossroads district offered to lead a campaign to raise funds for the Red Cross.

If there is a lesson to be learned in this disaster it is this, we need each other, and with each other’s support, we are indominitable. We’re proud to be a part of such a caring community and to help make a difference in the lives of our fellow Americans.

To learn more about the KC Katrina Relief Fund or to pledge your support, please contact Meara, King & Co. at 816.561.1400 or email info@meara.com or call us at Ingram’s at 816.842.9994—we’ll do everything we can to help.

 

Regards,

Editor-In-Chief & Publisher

jsweeney@ingramsonline.com