D’Antonis still helping
Laurel and Mike DA’ ntoni are among those who haven’t forgotten Harvey’s victims.
The holiday season has served as a reminder to Laurel D’Antoni the last couple of years.
When it’s time to decorate her home for Christmas, she remembers the boxes of decorations sitting in her basement in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., that were lost in 2016 when floods devastated the area.
Christmas decorations, family keepsakes and other various items were lost that summer as D’Antoni — wife of Rockets coach Mike — was rescued, along with the two family cats, in a boat.
The D’Antoni home ended up with about 2 feet of water in it.
They were able to get things cleaned and fixed up, but the experience is a lasting one.
Just over a year later, the D'Antonis watched from their West Virginia home as flood waters rose in Houston from Hurricane Harvey.
They had been set to fly back to Houston the Friday before the storm hit, but their flight was canceled.
The images were all too familiar. Families, pets, belongings loaded onto boats, canoes, air mattresses to get out of floodravaged homes.
As she’d done in West Virginia, Laurel sprung to action. And she hasn’t stopped. On Monday night, she and Mike are two of the honorees at the Answering the Call cocktail fundraiser at the Post Oak Hotel.
“There’s still so much work to be done,” Laurel said.
Laurel is known for her work in the community. When Harvey hit, she knew exactly who to work with to make an impact.
After the West Virginia floods, which resulted in 23 deaths, Laurel started working with SBP — a disaster relief nonprofit that was started in Louisiana after Katrina and has worked to help disaster victims in various parts of the country ever since.
The group has worked in Houston nonstop since Harvey, and Laurel has helped in various ways.
Another honoree on Monday night is J.J. Watt, whose foundation gave SBP $8.5 million to go toward rebuilding homes.
Watt raised more than $45 million to put toward Harvey relief and has dispersed it to several organizations.
The fundraiser is coming just days after more flooding in the Houston area. On Friday night, the area was hit with several inches of rain, causing several high water spots around town.
Every time high amounts of rain falls in the area, it’s a reminder that there is still so much work to do.
While the whole country came together to help Houston after Harvey, most people outside the area quickly moved on.
They don’t see the ongoing issues or the leftover damage from the storms.
So people like the D'Antonis, Watt and several others continue to work on relief efforts.
On Monday night, they’ll try to raise even more money to put toward cleaning up more Harvey messes.
From ticket sales for the event — $500 each — to auction items that will entice the biggest sports fans, the event aims to bring in several hundred thousand dollars to rebuild and restore homes affected by the floods.
Laurel even convinced Mike to let her auction a Coach for a Day experience, allowing fan to shadow him for coaches meetings, a team practice and road trip with the Rockets. There’s also a VIP package for a Texans game and a trip to the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.
The event on Monday isn’t the first of its kind. So many in Houston have raised a lot of money to put toward Harvey relief.
This is just the latest example of how the community keeps coming together to get over a tragic event.
Sports figures in the area have been a huge part of the relief.
From Watt’s foundation money — which several athletes, including Chris Paul ($50,000), donated to — to James Harden’s million dollar donation to the mayor’s Harvey relief campaign to ongoing efforts from others, the athletes, coaches, owners and organizations have stepped up when the city has needed them to. And hopefully, like Laurel, will continue to do so.
The D'Antonis’ Christmas decorations are a reminder of what they lost in a flood in West Virginia. But it’s not something that brings Laurel down. In fact, it’s something that keeps her motivated to keep moving forward and to help those who still need it.