‘Our largest humanitarian domestic response since World War II’
Volunteers drawn from across North America join dedicated local team
Organized chaos. That’s how Edmontonian Jennifer Schoenberger remembers the Expo Centre one year ago, when she found herself among 84 local volunteers for the Red Cross assembled to do whatever they could to help.
Wearing the signature red vest so identified with the international relief agency, Schoenberger helped to house the most vulnerable among the Fort McMurray evacuees. That included pregnant women, the elderly and anyone else who wouldn’t be able to sleep on a cot among more than 2,000 displaced people.
“I’m not sure you could accurately describe it to anyone who wasn’t there,” said Schoenberger, who has served at numerous local emergencies, from large-scale apartment fires to small-scale floods. “There were just people everywhere, waiting to be assessed, waiting to find out where they could put their heads down. They were exhausted, hungry ... in all stages of grief ... It was such an emotional roller-coaster.”
The Red Cross was one of many local charitable and helping agencies that surged into action in Edmonton on or about May 3, 2016. Groups from the United Way to the Edmonton Humane Society rallied to help tens of thousands of Fort McMurray evacuees.
“My Red Cross Alberta team, it was all hands on deck,” said Jenn McManus, vice-president, Alberta and N.W.T., for Red Cross Canada. “We activated and deployed over 3,200 personnel from May 3 to now. This is officially our largest humanitarian domestic response since World War II.”
Red Cross volunteers came to Edmonton from across Canada and the United States to pitch in. Other local agencies also made contributions, though sometimes on a more modest scale in keeping with their specific mandates.
The United Way of the Alberta Capital Region, for instance, is not traditionally a disaster service organization. But it distributed 1,300 backpacks full of pencils and paper to Fort McMurray students going to school in Edmonton so they could enter new classrooms with supplies. The agency is also now sitting on a planning committee charged with disbursing funds gathered by the Red Cross that continue to flow into Fort McMurray to support the rebuilding of the community.
The Edmonton Food Bank also was pressed into service and found itself overwhelmed on at least one front by donations from the public. Executive director Marjorie Bencz recalled eight semi-trailers full of bottled water arrived, and bottled water isn’t something they even worry about carrying at the Food Bank. Two semi-trailers’ worth is still in storage.
Bencz said her organization was “hit hard” providing food to evacuation centres both inside and outside Edmonton. But the biggest strain at the food bank was on its hamper program.
In May 2016, likely in response to Edmontonians having more guests staying with them from Fort McMurray, hamper usage spiked. In May 2015, the food bank distributed 15,773 hampers. In May 2016, that number was 23,681.
But Edmontonians were “good to us and generous in terms of food and money,” in response to Fort McMurray, said Bencz. She noted that the Red Cross has committed to provide funding relief for food costs the food bank incurred outside of Edmonton, but the cheque has yet to arrive.
Dalia Abdellatif is now a paid support worker at Edmonton Emergency Relief Services (EERS). But at the time of the fire, she was a volunteer — one of hundreds who threw themselves into the effort.
She remembered arriving at the EERS warehouse on 104 Street downtown shortly after the evacuation was announced, and seeing lineups down the street and around the corner. There were hundreds of people who either needed help or wanted to drop off donations. A chain of people passed boxes of donated items into the 24,000-square-foot warehouse, which was filled and emptied more than once. After a few days, the City of Edmonton secured a temporary space for EERS to use as a donation distribution centre for new items — a former Target store at Kingsway Mall.
Abdellatif, 40, a new Canadian who moved from Egypt five years ago, found herself in charge of organizing that centre. The first thing she did was draw a floor plan, then she set up at the reception desk and just got to work.
Everybody wanted to help. Walmart sent over shopping carts. Home Depot dropped off cardboard boxes that could be packed with donations. Abdellatif left the distribution centre at 11 p.m., and was back early in the morning to open up, sleeping just a few hours in between.
“But I wasn’t tired. I was fresh. When you see other people volunteering and doing all this work, it felt like I was doing nothing.”
Abdellatif said at least 500 of the centre’s volunteers worked each and every day from the beginning of the crisis to the point that the Target distribution centre closed on July 30, 2016.
Cindi Hache, the organization’s executive director, said her organization received a $45,000 grant from the Red Cross to help with expenses, which included feeding volunteers.
“For me, it was a really great experience; I haven’t seen that amount of volunteers willing to help. Whenever I remember, I just cry,” said Abdellatif.