[meteorite-list] Greensburg Relief Effort

Sun May 6 10:52:33 EDT 2007

Hi Maria and list,

it would be great if the list members could collect and donate some 
money to help the residents of Greensburg. I would offer some slice of 
new Nevada meteorites for the auction and a cash donation. We could 
have Steve and Mark place the money as needed to the residents of 
Greensburg.

Thanks,

Sonny

-----Original Message-----
From: dragonsoup at msn.com
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Sent: Sun, 6 May 2007 1:07 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Greensburg Relief Effort

Hello Everyone,

As Mark said in another email, a few of us are putting together a 
relief effort for the residents of Greensburg, Kansas. Our intent right 
now is to get some funds down there quickly. In the next day or so we 
will finalize the details and let you know about a fundraising raffle 
we are planning. It will be similar to the one Geoff did for Katrina. 
Those of you who donate funds prior to us working out the details will 
be included in the raffle.

I am accepting donations through my PayPal account at 
dragonsoup at msn.com. For those of you who prefer not to use PayPal, you 
can send donations to me directly: Maria Haas, 410 Spring Street, 
Saline, MI 48176.

Also, please take a look at your collections and see what you could 
donate to help someone from a true "meteorite community" devastated by 
a tornado. It will become part of the raffle.

Questions, concerns, comments, inspirations? Please feel free to email 
me.

More details soon.

Thank you,
Maria

--------------------------------------------------

An update from Steve follows:

Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2007 8:47 PM

Hello All,

It has been a strange day.  I have been scouring the internet to try to 
get a glimpse of my house in Greensburg in pictures and aerial videos.  
Not to sound selfish, but if my house is gone, there would be less of a 
need for me to get up there right away... or then again, their might be 
more of a reason to get up there.

My hope has been that since I haven't seen it in any of the really bad 
pictures, that is a good sign, as the media likes to show off the worst 
of things.

If my house is intact, enough that people could live in it, there is no 
need for me to be in the house long term, when someone else could 
occupy it, someone that totally lost their home, or someone involved 
directly in the relief effort.

If anyone cares, my home (or at least the lot) is at 302 S. Maple, 
Greensburg Kansas 67054.  Go to:

 www.mapquest.com

and you will see the street lay out of Greensburg.  Then go here:

 http://www.kansas.com/static/video/050507greensburg/

Watch the video, and at the 46 second mark, the street corner nearest 
the bottom right corner of the frame is Cedar and Wisconsin.  My house 
is one block to the East (right) from that corner, on the south east 
corner (Maple and Wisconsin).

The camera breaks, without panning any further East. My house should be 
less than a 1/2 block off the screen.  The houses start to look better 
and there are even green leaves on the trees a block from my house.

So there is a bit of optimism that my house might be ok.  I have some 
very nice neighbors all around me, one in a mobile home, which is 
always of greater concern during tornados.

As for the fundraiser, I want to support it, 100%, but before I commit 
to doing anything specific with my time and efforts, I would like to 
get up there and see what is going on and find out if I can help on 
site.  If someone else could handle the coordination of running the 
fundraiser and let me make inputs and suggestions, that would be best 
for now.

My suggestions at this point as to how we could help, lean in two 
directions.

First, Barclay College hosted the Meteorite Festival, and now they are 
the Rescue Shelter for most of Greensburg's families.  Of course much 
of the supplies and volunteers that will help there will be supplied by 
other people and groups such as the Red Cross.

Barclay College is a religious institution, and as such some people 
might be more inclined to want to route funds that way as they are an 
on site not-for-profit that - trust me - is giving 100% to this effort. 
On the other hand, some people might not want to route funds through 
them because they are religious in nature.  In any case, that is one 
suggestion I would highly make as they would know exactly where to put 
the funds to the best use.

The other might be a little more close to home with some of us.  I 
don't know the situation that Bob and Florence Peck are in, as they are 
not yet listed on the Red Cross's Safe list.  (There is no list of 
deceased or injured people made public, go figure!).  The Peck's live 
on the north side of Greensburg, as Steve Schoner mentioned, on 308 E. 
Pennsylvania, and by the video, odds are very good their home took a 
direct hit.

Bob Peck is the son of Ellis Peck, the author of "Space Rocks and 
Buffalo Grass" and when he was 18 years old, the job of actually 
digging the famous 1,000 pound Brenham out of the hole for H.O. 
Stockewell fell on Bob personally.  We (Brenham Meteorite Company) have 
a lease with Bob and Florence to hunt 160 acres they own in the Brenham 
Strewnfield (about 100 feet north of where the 1,430 pounder was 
found).  And unfortunately, with the first complete pass over their 
ground, I was not able to locate any meteorites on their ground.  So 
they have not profited with any windfall from a lucky find on their 
ground this last year and a half (other than the "signing bonus" they 
got at the time they signed the lease with us)

Of course I don't know their personal financial situation, but I 
gathered that even with a roof over their heads, finances were a bit 
tight for them.  In the event that they are distressed, I would think 
they would be great candidates to reach out to as fellow members of the 
meteorite community.  They are about as close to being "our people" as 
we can get.

Most of the other land owners in the Brenham strewn field are residents 
of town of Haviland 10 miles to the East, or in the rural area between 
the two towns.  Until I hear differently, I will assume most of them 
and their property should be safe.

On a side note, if you go here:

http://www.kansas.com/static/slides/050507tornadoaerials/

In photo #12, is the picture of the twisted water tower, and the Big 
Well building that housed the 1,000 pound meteorite.  You can see what 
I think is the oak stand (about 2 feet high and 3 feet wide, possibly 
tipped over) that the 1,000 pound meteorite had sat on (in the center 
of the frame, about 1/6 of the way up from the bottom).  If I am not 
mistaken, I think the meteorite is brown object on the floor just to 
the right of the stand.

Photos #5, #6, #11 and #25 also show the Big Well from other view 
points (just look for the green water tower metal in the photos).

By all means, there are thousands of places where we can help, but I 
think we can find a place to infuse some money ASAP that will help out.

This reminds me of the story of the little girl walking on the beach 
picking up and throwing stranded star fish back into the water.  There 
were thousands of them, and a man watching her asked "With so many star 
fish, you can't save them all, why do you even try? You can't make a 
difference."  Upon which the little girl picked up another one and 
threw it back it and replied: "It makes a difference to that one!"

Maybe we can't make a difference on a big scale with a fund raiser, but 
for the one or two people we can help, we can make a difference!

Maybe we can reach out to our friends and families and let them know 
that what we are doing.  We can solicit donations from them, telling 
them our connection via meteorites with the people there.  Maybe we can 
pull on their heart strings and they can help out too.

I am here to help anyway I can.  Just let me know where to throw a 
starfish.

Feel free to forward this on to the M-list if you like.

Steve Arnold

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