OK, I'll do this one more day'

By Nick Pinto/ Staff Writer - The Beacon
Thursday, September 22, 2005

ACTON - Terra Friedrichs woke up Sept. 20 ready to give up.

For weeks, ever since Hurricane Katrina created a massive humanitarian crisis along the gulf coast, Friedrichs had continued her full-time job as a systems integration manager even as she coordinated a rapidly burgeoning home-grown disaster relief effort from her home office.

"I was dragging," Friedrichs said. "But then the first call I got this morning was from a woman in Gulfport , and she said 'You're all angels, you're doing so much and no one else is helping us.' I said, 'Alright, I feel a little better now.'

The second call Friedrichs got was from a man in Medford who had heard about Friedrichs' project, the Citizen Action Team, and had persuaded the entire Medford school system to donate schoolbooks for her relief effort.

"I said 'OK, I'll do this one more day,'" Friedrichs said.

Then Friedrichs got a call from a truck driver saying he was ready to drive another truckload of Friedrichs' supplies down to the stricken gulf coast. Soon she was off again, pledging to continue her relief efforts until they are no longer needed.

Friedrichs began the Citizen Action Team after becoming increasingly frustrated with the official relief effort. "I was calling all these official volunteer lines, and no one could actually tell me anything," she said.

The disarray clearly extended to the gulf-coast operations as well. Friedrichs' niece was working on the ground in Louisiana with the relief effort, and told her that many of the most basic supplies were nowhere to be found.

"I decided to do something myself," Friedrichs said. "I'm used to working on big projects on a short time-frame. This is what I do."

Within days, Friedrichs was orchestrating donation drives, box-packing sessions, loaned semi-trucks, volunteer drivers, and needy recipients in Mississippi and Louisiana , and she was doing it all outside the official relief channels.

"We'll work with anyone who wants to work with us," she said, "but a lot of these official groups just haven't been organized. We had one of our trucks pull up to a Red Cross site, and when the driver opened the back of the truck the Red Cross guys just sort of stood around and shrugged. He said, 'OK,' and drove on and found a place ready to use what we had to give."

Friedrichs said she has been dismayed at how many hurricane relief projects are targeted at specific groups defined not by their need but by their former employers or a personal relationship with relief organizers.

"Those people often aren't the people in the greatest need," Friedrichs said. "We are strictly need-based. Everybody needs help right now, but the people who have a 401k are in better shape than most."

In prioritizing the distribution of her limited resources, Friedrichs has turned down some requests for aid.

"You can tell a lot about a group by what they request," she said. "I had a group that requested we send nail polish. There was another group that wanted us to send furniture. I was like, 'I think I'm going to start with the people who need underwear.'"

As the disaster has worn on, Friedrichs has adjusted her organizing efforts to meet the most pressing needs of the hurricane victims. Where she once was calling for donations of clothes and foodstuffs, she is now soliciting donated cleaning supplies to address the flood damage and related mold problem in many areas. She's also sending roofing supplies by the pallet-load and organizing a donation drive for schoolbooks.

As she goes along, she's gathering more and more collaborators. Volunteers from the Teamsters Local 25 are driving truckloads of donations to the gulf states , travelling two-to-a-truck so they can drive straight through the night. The Mayflower warehouse in Norwood has offered a range of support, and as Friedrichs has made public appeals for volunteers on NPR and KISS 108 and in the Boston Globe, dozens of individuals have joined in as well.

Friedrichs said her juggernaut has been supported by so many volunteers because the relief effort is nourishing not just to the people receiving her boxes of supplies but to the people packing them as well.

"It's hard to explain what it feels like to have your hands on those boxes," she said. "People tell me they can't walk away. We live in an environment where we have so much, yet spiritually we haven't had enough opportunity to serve, or it hasn't been clear enough how to serve, or we haven't had enough direction. That part of us has wanted."

Friedrichs said she has been continuously surprised that volunteers, dripping with sweat after staying hours longer than they intended, will thank her for the opportunity to help.

"How many people do you know who say 'Oh, I want to join the Peace Corps,' and then they never do, because it's a big step and the Peace Corps sends you far away," Friedrichs said. "We're like the Peace Corps, only we're nearby, we're now, we're here. We're an opportunity for people who want to do something more valuable than sit around sipping martinis."

For more information on the Citizen Action Team or to learn how you can help, visit www.citizenactionteam.org, or contact Tera Friedrichs at 978-266-2778 or terraf@compuserve.com