Use Your Hands, Not Just Your Checkbook - Kris Magel-Initiative U.S.

AN INDUSTRY CHALLENGE TO HELP THOSE IN HARD HIT AREAS OF STATEN ISLAND

Hey, New York media community – agencies, media partners, and marketers alike – if you truly want to help out in a tangible, boots-on-the-ground way, to USE YOUR HANDS, NOT JUST YOUR CHECKBOOK - to help the coastal communities of Staten Island – then click right here http://www.facebook.com/NewYorkMediaCares. Join/friend New York Media Cares, spread the word, and if/once you do something of your own, post images and stories about your experiences. You can also use the following Twitter handle - @NYmediacares.

I admit it – I have "disaster-guilt." It stems from the fact that I live in an area of Manhattan that was not affected by Hurricane Sandy. We never lost power, suffered no damage, and our access togroceries, water and other household items was never shut off. My wife, Courtnay, had to wait on line for a half hour for gas once. All the TV reports I've seen never seemed to quite capture the full scale of what's occurred across the most hard-hit areas - Staten Island, Breezy Point, Long Beach, Rockaway, Bayhead, Sea Bright...fill in the blank, there are so many of them. Frankly, I've found Facebook and Twitter MUCH more informative because a lot of friends and colleagues are posting images, experiences and frustration from many surrounding areas, and that's made it more real for me.

So when Initiative's head of corporate communications, Chris Jones, sent an email around saying he'd talked to Congressman Michael Grimm's office in Staten Island, suggesting that Initiative take a day and volunteer our help wherever it was needed, I was relieved – "I finally get to DO something about all of this!"

So last Tuesday morning, 70 Initiative employees climbed onto buses and headed to the Midland Hills and Dew Dorp areas of Staten Island. When we got there, it was a clear disaster situation – as we walked off of our bus, we could have jumped right into the BOAT sitting atop a parked car. Homes in the neighborhood were water damaged, many without power; leftover piles of food and other supplies sat on random street corners; we saw some men dressed in fatigues walk by with sledgehammers, shovels and brooms; police traveled through the streets, speaking through a loudspeaker and handing out supplies to those that came out of their buildings; and it was starting to get COLD (the temp went down into the 30's last week after our visit).

We were greeted by Mike "Loco" Hoffman, the area's block coordinator. Clearly the operation was just getting up and running and needed some organization and infrastructure. It didn't appear supplies were an issue, with huge mounds of cleaning and medical supplies, food, and tools…there just wasn't enough manpower to organize and distribute them. Mike was thankful tohave us there, and his colleagues started to break us into teams and assign us specific addresses. They gave us a quick description of what was needed (cleanup, demolition, etc.), how many people should go, and what tools we should take with us. They supplied us with most of the tools – lots of shovels, brooms, sledgehammers, screwdrivers, garbage bags, and, importantly – gloves, eye protection, and ventilation masks to protect us from the mold and sewage in peoples' basements. And off we went to our designated homes to help people. We spent about 8 hours of straight work, mostly in basements, demo'ing walls, floors, ceilings and other water-damaged areas, and clearing the houses of debris – waterlogged furniture, sheetrock, sometimes all of their possessions.

My group went to the house of a woman named Florence. She was about 70 years old – and elderly enough to not be able to do the work that needed to be done. Her basement had been flooded up to about 3 feet during the storm, but not with seawater – with sewage backup. She couldn't drink her tap water, but someone had delivered her about 60 bottles of water so she was okay for the time being. We left her about 6 Subway sandwiches that we'd brought for ourselves and she put them in the fridge. And while 5 or 6 of us worked downstairs clearing out sewage-soaked sheet rock, Mark from our group sat with her upstairs, and just talked to her. She explained that her husband had recently passed away, and while she had a son who lives in Massachusetts, he was not able to come down and help out. Honestly, I think Florence was happier to have Mark's company that day than she was about the cleanup work we were doing. She had no one to talk to, really. Some curious neighbors stopped by, and askedwhen someone might be coming to their homes. I won't soon forget the moment when we were giving the gentleman who lived next door some tools, and he said, "Thanks so much for these, but I can't do much with them…I need help."

I will say it felt incredibly good to have been able to help in such real, tangible way. BUT, after our one day tour, a full 70 of us were only able to help out about 7-8 homeowners. I don't want to understate our impact, but out of hundreds, that is just not enough. And Mike told us that they were woefully short of volunteers that week. After all I have read about everyone in the NY/NJ area coming together throughout this ordeal, that news honestly shocked me.

So I got to thinking…we need to let the industry know about this. God knows how long it's going to take to help this neighborhood fully recover, - but if each company in our industry was to donate a single day of volunteer work, just like we did – we actually could have quite an impact. I'm pretty confident that many in our industry will rise to this challenge, as – most people want to help, they just haven't had a real sense of how to go about doing it. In fact, many that I've spoken to about our experience are already looking into their own efforts. It's NOT easy, it's not pleasant, and it's a littlebit hazardous...but it is what is needed right now.

So, in collaboration with Congressman Grimm's office, we are calling on the New York media community – agencies, media partners, and marketers alike – if you truly want to help out in a tangible, boots-on-the-ground way, to USE YOUR HANDS, NOT JUST YOUR CHECKBOOK - to help the coastal communities of Staten Island. We've chosen to focus on the Staten Island community as that is the area we visited and are coordinating with Congressman Grimm, but clearly your help would be appreciated in ANY hard-hit NY/NJ area. We're calling this outreach effort "New York Media Cares."

To help facilitate this, we've created a landing page on Facebook that includes all the necessary information for your company's trip (Staten Island contacts, transportation contacts etc.). If your company volunteers a day, we encourage you to stream YOUR trip photos and comments, all of which should hopefully help push more companies to pick up a shovel and join in. Click on the link right here [Facebook or Twitter] to like/follow the cause, spread the word, and post images and stories about your experiences. You can also use the following Twitter handle - @NYmediacares.

And I'll tell you what…it sure does wonders for a case of the disaster-guilts.

Kristian (Kris) Magel serves as Executive Vice President, Director National Broadcast for Initiative, one of the Interpublic Group's (NYSE: IPG) two worldwide media networks and part of the company's IPG Mediabrands unit. He is responsible for overseeing all national negotiations and related activities for the agency's major television marketing clients including Hyundai, Kia, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, Miller Coors, Lionsgate, Merck, USAA, Hasbro Toys, Vizio, Ameriprise, Kao Brands, Victoria's Secret, PETCO and Nikon.

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