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Small in numbers, great in struggles
© St. Petersburg Times, Nobody thought about what would happen afterward. Our faces were glued to the TV, while our hearts pounded with outrage and anguish. When the call came for money to help the victims of Sept. 11's attacks, we responded. Nearly $1-billion has been raised. It was a miracle, reassuring proof of our national strength and our ability to come together. Five weeks have passed. Now an uncomfortable question arises. Does it take an act of war to bring out the best instincts in us? What about the rest of the time? Tampa's Alpha House is a sign of the rest of the time. The other George Bush once named Alpha House, a home for pregnant women, one of his thousand points of light. Number 531 to be precise. Alpha House, in South Tampa, is not very big. Last year, it helped about 80 women. Some are homeless. Some are drug addicted. Some have children already. Some are impossibly young. There was even a girl once who came in knowing so little of ordinary life that she had to be taught how to use a knife and fork. Alpha House gives these women shelter, job training, a chance to start over. It does all this on less than $1-million a year. Bonnie Christiano, Alpha House's executive director, had budget worries before Sept. 11. The state was preparing to cut its spending, and that always hurt social programs; Alpha House certainly qualified as a target. The economic downturn also would affect how much Christiano could raise. And since Sept. 11, she has worried Alpha House's budget will be smaller still. Every year, in August, Alpha House issues one of its four annual fundraising letters. The August results are usually known by late September. Last September, $5,000 was taken in. This September, the figure was one-fourth that. Christiano has only one explanation. Her donors had already given -- to the charities helping the terror victims. "I've never seen anything like it," she said. She had no idea what to do. On sleepless nights, she imagined Alpha House's coming money crisis like so many dominoes about to fall. Finally, in one of those sleepless hours, an idea struck. She would write a fundraising letter and ask for donations to Alpha House in honor of those who died Sept. 11. "We don't want to be opportunistic. We want to be sensitive but we want to be able for our agency to do its job," Christiano said. The letter, sent out this week, read in part: "Because you care and because you give, please consider a donation to this Memorial Fund. It will recognize those who died and it will help Alpha moms in raising our next generation." Money is trickling in. It's a start. But still unanswered are the questions about our generosity, to those in New York, but not to our own community, day in, day out. There is the matter of proportion, visibility. Next to 5,000 people dead, 80 women struggling to stay alive doesn't look like much. But women like those at Alpha House live in every city in America. They are invisible. When they surface, they are blamed for their plight. But the victims of Sept. 11 had that most powerful hallmark, innocence. The attacks made America a tight-knit community again. It has been the one great shining moment in this horror. We care about one another again. If we were as tightly knit in Tampa Bay as we were now as a nation, Alpha House would have no worries about money, and no waiting list of women desperate to get in. -- Mary Jo Melone can be reached at (813) 226-3402 or mjmelone@sptimes.com.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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Times columns today Mary Jo Melone From the Times Metro desk |
