Relief efforts seek donations to help victims of earthquake, tornado

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By Barb Ickes | Sunday, June 01, 2008 |

Pleasant Valley Junior High School students Kevin Li, left, and Cody Corchado, both 13, play violin at the China earthquake relief fundraiser outside the Freight House in Davenport on Saturday. The U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association, Davenport Sister Committee and the Quad-City China Association sponsored the event, and Quad-City area Hy-Vee stores donated egg rolls. (Elisa Petersen/Quad-City Times) Buy this Photo

The gripping images have come from near and far.

On Saturday, they came a little closer to the Quad-Cities.

On an oversized corkboard near the Freight House in Davenport, color photographs showed the breathtaking devastation from China’s 8.0 magnitude earthquake from May 12. A seemingly endless parade of people who were shopping the Farmers Market stopped at the corkboard to solemnly take in the pictures and the tallies: 68,858 dead, 366,586 injured, 18,618 missing, 5 million homeless.

It was on the final number — the more than 5 million homeless Chinese — that two Quad-City organizations found their focus.

Members of U.S.-China People’s Friendship Association, or USCPFA, and the Quad-City Chinese Association got word from the Chinese consulate in Chicago on what, exactly, they could do to help.

“The death toll in China is like the city of Moline just died,” said Sherry Maurer, of USCPFA. “Our main emphasis today is on the millions of homeless.”

The groups collected donations at the Farmers Market, and the money will be used to buy tents for those who survived the deadly quake but were left without shelter. Volunteers plan to work with tent manufacturers in the U.S. to get discounted prices on as many tents as their donations will buy.

“One of the worst things, as a student, was seeing all those schools that went down in the earthquake, trapping so many children,” said Shravan Chintalapani, a junior in Bonnie Campbell’s Chinese class at Rivermont Collegiate, Bettendorf. “All those one-child families lost their only child.

“The nice thing is that, all the way out here in the middle of Iowa, we’re helping, showing how much we care.”

But devastation closer to home also was the focus of relief efforts Saturday in Davenport.

Cars, trucks and SUVs formed a nearly continuous line in one corner of the Hy-Vee parking lot on West Kimberly Road, carrying loads of donations to a semi-trailer that is bound for Parkersburg, New Hartford and Dunkerton, Iowa.

Hundreds were left homeless in northeast Iowa after a massive tornado strike a week ago.

When Linda Neese, of Davenport learned that her sister’s best friend (“part of our ‘sister circle’”) lost everything, Neese and her youngest son went shopping.

“We went and picked up a bunch of things that we thought would help, and we shipped them right off,” she said Saturday. “But that didn’t seem like enough. We talked it over and decided, if we’re going to help, let’s do it right.”

So, Neese and her husband, Ted, organized a collection drive, depending largely on friends and family to make it happen. They landed a donated semi-truck and trailer from Hawkeye Movers, which also donated a driver.

The rest seemed to come together on its own.

“We just got a truck and a place to put it,” Linda Neese said. “Everyone else is doing the work. It’s kind of amazing how they just keep coming.”

Among the parade of donors was Tiffany Wicklund and family from Fenton, Ill. — a 45-minute drive from Davenport.

“We heard about the donation site on the news, and I told my girls (ages 6 and nearly 4) about all the homes that were crushed,” she said. “We went through their rooms and picked out things and loaded the van.

“We’ve been trying to work with them on being grateful for what they have.”

The girls lugged many of their like-new toys across the parking lot and, smiling, set them on the ground near the truck. Some of the toys and stuffed animals were larger than the children, but they kept returning to the van, lugging another load to the truck.

“We’re grateful, with gas prices, to have someone going to the tornado site with one giant truck,” Neese said. “The kids seem to understand what we’re trying to do. It’s good for them, too.”

Barb Ickes can be contacted at (563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.