Ability to Help: A Success Indicator

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By Stephanie Chandler

Though Hurricane Katrina occurred thousands of miles away, the Sacramento Metro Marketplace has shown tremendous generosity and support for those affected by the tragedy. The stories of giving and the acts of kindness are too numerous to mention, but some, representing all, are recounted here. Way to go, Sacramento!
     “We had an eight-year-old girl show up,” says Elaine Viraye from the Sacramento Sierra Red Cross. “She raised over $6,000 from a lemonade stand. A lemonade stand! There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It was very moving.”
     After Katrina hit, Courtney Olsen, a Roseville fourth grader, watched images of New Orleans on TV with her father Scott Olsen, 41, a staffing supervisor for SureWest. “Courtney was very moved by what she saw,” he says, “She said ‘I wish there was something I could do to help,’ and I told her, ‘you can’.”
     On Labor Day weekend, the Olsens set up a lemonade stand in their local Ralph’s grocery store parking lot. Courtney borrowed a tiki hut from SureWest and Courtney enlisted her four-year-old brother, Parker, and some kids from school.
     “The response was absolutely amazing,” says Scott Olsen. “Some people would just drive up and hand $20 out the window of their cars and say, ‘I hate lemonade but here you go!’”
     A particularly poignant moment involved the arrival of an evacuated family now staying in Roseville. They showed up at Ralph’s to thank Courtney. “The mother is a nurse. When the bottom three floors of her hospital flooded, she had to evacuate. All she had were her two kids and the clothes on their backs,” Scott Olsen says.
     Checks continued to roll in for two weeks following the event. Roseville’s House of Bread contributed $1,000 in matched funds and Cartridge World contributed $200. When the donations were tallied, Courtney Olsen’s “Katrina-Aid” lemonade stand raised $6,150.
     “Our area has been incredibly generous,” says Viraye. “We’ve sent more than 162 local volunteers and have trained more than 1,300 additional volunteers, who are ready to go when we need them.”
Continued...

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