The money's where the mouth is

I was talking to Dave on the telephone this afternoon when he told me a co-worker mentioned the relief fund that had been set up by Mississippi native, John Grisham, a few months back - and that we might want to check it out. I recall hearing something about a fund being started by Mr. Grisham and his wife in the local news a long time ago (AP article in SunHerald here) - but had not heard a peep since. Consequently, I forgot all about it.

So the co-worker mentions that he was helped through the relief fund.. and I am a bit surprised since we never heard anything about funds being available. We start an internet search and find the website: http://www.rebuildthecoastfund.org

That's where we find the answer... Although early on there was mention of an application becoming available at the website -- no application was ever posted. It was decided instead to make applications available through word of mouth.

Now - I have no beef with the Rebuild the Coast Fund. Apparently, they have been quietly helping a lot of people in their rebuilding efforts -- and I actually found it rather uplifting to at least hear about someone who knows someone who knows Dave being a recipient. That's better than usual with such things.

You know all that money you've been hearing about? All those donations? All those programs? All the aide pouring in to help Katrina victims? Yes - I have heard about it all too... and I probably know just as much about it all as the rest of the country. The fact is - we get to see the headline when the aide is announced... and then we get to see the human interest story when it's all over and everyone goes home. In the meantime -- we know nothing. Why? Well... Word of mouth definitely has its limitations.

The Red Cross and the Salvation army resorted to cloak and dagger techniques when it came to their hurricane relief centers and various programs. The location of a given distribution on a given date would be printed in the paper on Monday morning.... By Monday afternoon that particular location was totally desolate with absolutely no indication that anyone had ever been there -- no signs referring folks to the new top secret location.... By Wednesday I would hear from a friend of a friend of someone who actually broke the code and found the center -- that if you had arrived at said center 15 minutes before the paper arrived at your house they would have referred you to the new location. One lady told me that she was asked not to disclose the location of the top secret Salvation Army post because they did not want to be bombarded with too many folks looking for help. So much for word of mouth.

Obviously then... the secret to getting assistance begins with knowing someone who works or volunteers for one of the involved organizations... or with someone in the news media who managed to get the real scoop... Those people then tell only their closest friends and relatives who, in turn, tell theirs... and shortly down the line it all gets hush-hush again. In the meantime, these fortunate few find themselves in-the-know for future assistance simply because they managed to get in line for the first round and possibly made a few contacts with the right folks.

For instance - a lady I talked to off of 14th street managed to get volunteers to come to gut-out her home. When that was finished - those volunteers were contacted by another volunteer group coming down wanting to know where to go to help... and they were referred to the same lady... so that group came in and put up sheetrock... And so it went until this lady and her immediate family managed to go from gutting to sheetrock to painting to electrical to cabinet and trim installation to a new roof, free furniture, toys, groceries and even new landscaping. Next door her neighbor's house still lies in ruins.

Maybe her neighbor wasn't the 'networking' type. Maybe whoever lives there just spends their weekends at home mowing the lawn... Maybe they don't belong to social clubs or attend the biggest parties. The question is -- why would those providing assistance rely on the word of mouth from the neighbor to discover that such a person may need help when they are right next door?

The limitations of the mouth are not limited to free assistance by any means either. Try finding a reference for a good contractor in an area where even the shadiest of handymen are justified in telling you there's a six month wait ahead before they can begin work. If someone is lucky enough to have an actual live and working crew at their home -- they are likely to skirt and dodge all day before actually giving someone else a contact number. "I uh.. don't want my contractor to sandbag too many jobs," said one otherwise helpful man, "because then he would be tempted to send his crews to work on other jobs and slow down the work at my house."

He doesn't have much to worry about, you see... Because for some reason many contractors (local or otherwise) are employing the same super secret password method for determining what jobs to consider. For instance, you can call the number in the telephone directory or from the sign on the side of the road all day every day - but don't expect to get a callback... let alone one of the advertised free estimates... You have to have the 'right' number. One fellow called back after a marathon week of leaving messages with contractors and said, "I only call people back who call my cell - 'cause I know they got the number from some place where we're already working." (Little did he know that I picked up the number when he called our cell phone about an hour earlier and then claimed to 'have the wrong number'.)

So we find the Rebuild the Coast Fund website and find a Sun Herald article posted from February 9, 2006 which reads, in part:

"Though plans originally were announced to post an application online at www.rebuildthecoastfund.org, Renee Grisham said in a written report, they found it to be unnecessary.

"Word of mouth worked just fine," she said, "and we now have more applications than we can possibly process - at least 500 in the pipeline.'"

*sniffle* Too late again.

I think I'll go finish my coffee and practice my schmoozing skills in the mirror...