By Julia Menzo
Even though I had been working by Zoom with Stacey for months on flood recovery in the Eastwick neighborhood of Philadelphia, this day in March was the first time I had ever met her in person! If you see signs for Heinz Refuge and Island Avenue on I-95, you know where Eastwick is. Unfortunately, a massive landfill and the confluence of the Cobbs and Darby Creeks, make Eastwick prone to severe flooding.
Last August four feet of water from Tropical Storm Isaias covered most of Eastwick. Lutheran Disaster Response – Eastern PA (LDR) and partner organizations, including Eastwick community organizations and churches, are helping 50 families recover. That recovery includes repairing and replacing HVAC systems, hot water tanks, and ruined living spaces.
The Lutheran contribution is helping to coordinate the whole effort and also providing case management…and that’s where Stacey comes in. Stacey is a resident of Eastwick who served as a case manager during Hurricane Sandy recovery in Brooklyn. It soon became obvious that hiring Stacey as part of our LDR team would be tremendously helpful. Survivors who still don’t have an HVAC system, hot water, or needed rebuilding, are anxious and overwhelmed, especially as we enter another hurricane season. Stacey’s job is to walk her neighbors through the tedious processes of recovery, including applications to the Small Business Administration for disaster-related loans, city rebuild programs, and to coordinate conversations with heating vendors, volunteer teams, and others.
Stacey is invaluable not only because she is from the community and because of her experience, but also because she is African American. Seventy-five percent of Eastwick’s residents and nearly 100 percent of the survivors we work with identify as African American.
Eastwick has suffered tremendous injustices related to land use in the last century including urban redevelopment that left homes prone to new flood risks, on top of that, the community was redlined in the 1930s.
Eastwick community leaders advocate tirelessly to protect their neighbors with mitigation strategies to avert water from homes, and also on current survivor needs.
Those Zoom calls with Stacey started when Philadelphia’s Office of Emergency Management introduced LDR and our traditional disaster response partners like United Church of Christ Disaster Ministries to Eastwick leaders. The traditional disaster representatives are white. The community leaders are Black. Having a more diverse team from the disaster agency partners at the beginning would have built understanding much faster among us.
I cannot truly understand the experience of someone whose family has learned to navigate the consequences of decades of unjust policies, but we can at least build relationships with Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC), LGBTQ+ and others to bring those voices to the table.
Stacey is critical to helping us see things through the eyes of her neighbors. If we are serious about responding to Jesus’s love for us through service and justice, we need to learn more about how to become “us”, and I think we need to learn about following instead of leading, especially in places of strong community leadership as is true of Eastwick. I am grateful that donations from congregations like Trinity and others make relationship-building with Eastwick and the hiring of someone as awesome as Stacey possible.
LDR-EPa is a ministry of Lutheran Congregational Services, part of the Liberty Lutheran family of communities and services.
The author, a Trinity disciple, is Director of Community Outreach for Liberty Lutheran Services and coordinator for LDR-EPa. She serves on Trinity’s Racial Justice Ministry Team.