Catholic Charities continues to assist with long-term support for families impacted by May tornado
Recovery efforts have been a work in progress — brick by brick and block by block — six months after a tornado tore through the St. Louis area.
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of St. Louis has stepped in to assist with immediate and long-term recovery efforts of those affected by the May 16 tornado, adding to its ongoing disaster assistance from tornadoes that struck other parts of the archdiocese in March and April.
On a crisp October morning, students from Cardinal Ritter College Prep and St. Mary’s South Side Catholic High School cleaned yards, removed debris and stacked bricks from damaged homes in the Academy neighborhood of north St. Louis.
“We’re all humans and we gotta help each other, and just hearing about so many people in trouble, I want to do what I can to give back to the community. Nobody deserves to have this happen to them,” Cardinal Ritter senior Terrell Ramey Jr. said. Ramey said that Cardinal Ritter students, some of whom were personally impacted by the tornado, also have held several fundraisers for tornado victims.
Beth Bartolotta, who was hired in July as Catholic Charities’ executive director of service-learning integration, connected the students with Ali Rand and several other Central West End residents who have been organizing recovery efforts with their neighbors in north St. Louis.
“When you look around, it looks like you’re going to get nothing done today,” Rand told the student volunteers. “I promise you guys, you being here makes our job so much easier.”
She pointed to a neighbor’s house on Kensington Avenue that had damage to part of the brick exterior wall and instructed students on how to sort through the brick so it could be saved for rebuilding. “We’re going to get his house back together,” Rand said. “It’s not going to be this month or probably this year, but in the spring, his house is gonna look a lot different than it looks today.”
Several St. Mary’s students dug through piles of brick, tossing broken pieces into small wheelbarrows to be carted to a nearby dumpster and carefully stacking good bricks on palettes.
Sophomore Kaleb Conner has been helping with cleanup in north St. Louis, tagging along with his dad, who works on the northside. He doesn’t want impacted residents to be forgotten and said that even small tasks, such as sorting through bricks, can make a big difference.
“We want to help them out and make this community great again,” Kaleb said.
Bartolotta of Catholic Charities has been connecting students from Catholic high schools with tornado cleanup service opportunities in the Academy and surrounding neighborhoods. Officials have estimated that more than 5,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed, causing an estimated $1.6 billion in property damage.
“Your students may not feel like scraping bricks, cleaning up debris in yards, or packing up belongings is making a difference, but they are providing survivors hope,” Bartolotta wrote in a tornado backgrounder sent to high school service facilitators. “The idea that they will eventually have their neighborhood restored thanks to the kindness of others means more than your students can know.”
Long-term case management
Catholic Charities has connected with residents to provide long-term case management services. There are currently five case managers dedicated to disaster recovery, and Catholic Charities has been tapped by the city of St. Louis to expand that to 10 case managers through Rams settlement funds.
“Every one of these families that we are engaging need disaster case management,” Catholic Charities’ chief community officer Brian Thouvenot said. “They need someone to help them through a process that is foreign to most people.”
The tornado, which sliced a path of destruction from Clayton through Forest Park and across north St. Louis, devastated hundreds of homes and displaced thousands of residents. With winter approaching, many of those homes still need to be stabilized and secured to prevent additional damage, Thouvenot said. Some residents’ homes will need to be torn down completely in order to rebuild.
Donations to Catholic Charities’ disaster relief have been put to use in helping with immediate needs, such as rent assistance and other housing-related expenses. A new program called House to Home will pair participants with residents to refurnish their homes with needed items including pots and pans, dishes and furniture.
Food security
Catholic Charities’ chaplain Father Daniel Thiess, CM, continues to work with parish food pantries and other organizations to ensure that those who were impacted by the storm are still being fed.
The Vincentian priest, who also is spiritual advisor/chaplain for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Archdiocesan Council of St. Louis, hit the ground running shortly after the May 16 storm, working with both organizations and his own Vincentian connections to assist with the long task of recovery.
Father Thiess has primarily worked with the Our Lady of Perpetual Help food pantry, food pantries at St. Josephine Bakhita and St. Peter Claver parishes and the Wellston Center to share resources.
“Our effort is to make sure that we help tornado victims” both in St. Louis and in rural parts of the archdiocese impacted by the spring tornadoes, he said. “People call me and say ‘where can I get this,’ and I say let me call and find out.”
With a disruption in SNAP benefits and the upcoming holidays, Father Thiess said that ongoing food collections — including one hosted in parishes in November — will keep the pantries full.
St. Vincent de Paul once said that “charity is the cement which binds communities to God and persons to one another,” Father Thiess said. “People have been generous. We’re seeing this charitable act through faith and it has bound people together.”
Mental health assistance
In the tornado’s immediate aftermath, counselors from Catholic Charities’ Saint Louis Counseling were part of a team deployed by the Missouri Department of Mental Health that canvassed neighborhoods to connect residents with mental health resources.
Catholic Charities’ Queen of Peace Center, which offers family-centered behavioral health care for women with substance use disorders, their children and families, also received funding through FEMA and the Missouri Department of Mental Health for the Show Me Hope Crisis Counseling Program to connect survivors with local mental health resources.
“We’re going to have individuals going into the community and meeting with people one on one to help them find the resources they need,” said Sharon Spruell, CEO of Saint Louis Counseling and Queen of Peace Center. “It might be that they need a listening ear to hear how the tornado impacted that individual and their family. It could mean they need mental health or heath care resources. It’s our purpose to be there and help people talk about it and build those relationships to let them know there are resources available.”
