Duluth Mayor Don Ness said yesterday he was "shocked" by the federal government's decision not to help individual Northlanders devastated by last month's floods.
Far less shocking than the FEMA snub is the cold reality that Duluth and the Northland are falling far short of the mayor's fundraising goal to help those same homeowners ring out and start anew. Raising $1 million in one month from individuals, corporations and businesses is proving to be an unrealistic undertaking, to put it nicely, as many probably figured it would be for a non-metro area such as ours. With just five days left in that one month, only about $330,000 has been raised. That includes from a telethon and from an outdoor music festival featuring the band Trampled by Turtles.
"It was a very aggressive goal," Ness told the News Tribune Opinion page, putting it just as nicely. "At the same time we've raised $330,000 in less than a month. I think that is a tremendous start. ... We're grateful for the generosity we've seen."
The bad news is that FEMA's decision to stiff the Northland on individual flood aid makes the mayor-announced, United Way-led, region-wide, grass-roots fundraising effort all that much more critical and urgent.
The good news is that the fundraising doesn't have to end just because July is coming to a close.
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"Our goal was to raise as much as we could as (soon after the flood) as possible," Ness said. "But we need to keep on raising money. The greatest risk now is that as the public infrastructure is being fixed and as the outward evidence of the storm kind of fades away people will still be struggling with the
aftereffects. Their individual struggles may not be as visible as a sinkhole on Skyline, but in some ways they're more critical. We're talking about people's lives and well-being."
That means ongoing fundraising is necessary. To contribute to help flood-ravaged private homeowners and property owners whose insurance won't pick up the tab and who are being left out in the cold by FEMA, go to 2012floodrelief.org.
That plea can be especially heeded by corporations and businesses in Duluth and the Northland. Only 22 -- yep, just 22 -- corporations and businesses have answered the mayor's challenge and have stepped up with donations of $1,000 or more, according to daily donation reports from the United Way of Greater Duluth to the News Tribune Opinion page.
"I know there are a lot of things in the works," Reed said, acknowledging that contributions from corporations, businesses and nonprofits can take time, including to get board approvals or to complete other complicated decision processes. "The fundraising is going to be ongoing. I don't know if people understand this: Long-term recovery isn't going to take months; it'll take years. Having resources available for the long term will be critical."
While FEMA turned a cold shoulder on individual Northlanders, federal disaster money is being counted on to help rebuild public buildings and infrastructure. And the Minnesota Legislature is expected to meet for a one-day special session next month to kick in matching state money.
"There's so much happening," Reed said.
But not $1 million in one month. The mayor's goal isn't happening.
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So how about half a million in one month? We still have five days to raise the $170,000 needed to get to that milestone. We can do that, can't we? If more members of our corporate and business communities step up to lead the way we sure can.
