Hope and Help After Storms

Once again, the aftermath of the recent hurricanes and storms has left children and families across the Southeast reeling as they work to repair homes and rebuild lives. Many families have spent the last few days and weeks in deep uncertainty, waiting to find out when schools will reopen when adults will be able to return to work, and, for some families, when they will be able to go home. This time, the response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton has only been complicated by the dramatic amount of misleading and false information being spread about the federal government’s response and the ways people can seek help.
The original Children’s Defense Fund logo came from a drawing by five-year-old Maria Coté and shows a bright sun shining on a small boat with a tiny sail adrift on a very wide sea. Above the boat, in Maria’s handwriting, is the ancient fisherman’s prayer: “Dear Lord, be good to me. The sea is so wide, and my boat is so small.” When CDF completed its first report in 1974, I asked permission from Maria’s mother to use the drawing on the cover. A few years later, when someone suggested CDF ought to have a logo, I looked at Maria’s drawing hanging above my desk and realized it reflected CDF’s mission more truthfully than any abstract piece prepared by the graphic arts firm we’d consulted ever could. Fifty years later, the image of a boat remains a powerful symbol, and the metaphor of children and young people adrift in choppy seas always feels painfully apt after literal storms and floods. There must always be a course to safe harbor.
José Andrés is the extraordinary chef and humanitarian who founded the nonprofit World Central Kitchen to provide and serve meals after Haiti was devastated by an earthquake in 2010. World Central Kitchen teams are at work in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee serving hot meals after these storms, just as they continue to do in disaster zones and war zones around the world, and Andrés has said his humanitarian work is influenced by something he learned about boats while serving in the Spanish Navy: “I learned the power of bringing a group of people together to try to move a ship against winds and against currents, but always trying to take it to safety of a good port.”
The stories of people who have come together to help neighbors and strangers are always a beacon of hope. In the familiar words of the beloved Mr. Rogers, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” Even for people who are far from the affected region, there are many ways to support the national and local organizations who are on the ground assisting residents and families right now. I share again, a few simple prayers for all those affected by the storms and floods and all those among the helpers.
God, straighten our backs
clear our heads
strengthen our voices and judgment
infuse our hearts
with Your mighty and comforting spirit.
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O God for whom nothing is too hard
Who makes the impossible possible
Every minute of every day
Kindle within us an unshakable faith
In Your presence, power, and goodness.
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God, help us to be like bamboo, which bends and bows and sways in the winds but never breaks.