By Brian Zanzonico
By Monday, the boxes will be on their way to students of the West Orange-Cove Consolidated Independent School District in impoverished Orange, Texas. And not a moment too soon. The town of 20,000, where 20 percent of families live under the poverty line in normal circumstances, was further decimated when Hurricane Rita ripped through Texas and Louisiana in September, leaving the town in tatters.
Now, however, help is on the way from some neighbors up north, whom residents of Orange have never met. And it goes beyond school supplies. Since Badalucco started Orange-Aid in early November, the community has donated about $8,000 for clothing, Wal-Mart and Home Depot gift cards and toys. It will benefit school district students and the congregation of Mt. Zion Baptist Church, and pay for a new roof for St. Therese Roman Catholic Church, where a tarp has provided shelter since the storm.
"This confirms to me that there are a lot of good people out there," Badalucco said of Franklin Square's outpouring of support.
He volunteered with the American Red Cross after Hurricane Rita hit, and oversaw a feeding operation in Orange in late September that prepped and served 14,000 meals a day to relief workers and residents who had nowhere else to go. Holed up in a shelter, Badalucco worked 13-hour days and for quite a while did not even have a chance to tour the town he was helping. When he finally took a truck and drove around, he realized that Orange was in need of more than hurricane relief. He visited the local school district and churches and learned the town was downright depressed.
"When I went down there, I identified a need and started making calls, but I was nervous because I didn't know where it would go," he said. "I told them I'd help them, but it was without basis."
When he returned to his classroom on Oct. 17, Badalucco hatched Orange-Aid, a campaign to raise money for the school district. To keep from overshadowing Carey's Homecoming on Oct. 22, he kept it quiet. After he addressed the leaders of the school's classes and clubs a week later, his nervousness subsided. "They were riveted," he said. "I thought, we may have something here."
After he met with the presidents of Carey's school clubs and every class government, the effort started to come together. Cheerleaders donated a basket of school supplies, and the PTA raised money at Bingo Night. For $1, donors wrote their names on a slip of paper declaring "I Squeezed Out a Buck for Orange-Aid," which were then displayed outside the main office. For $2, donors received an orange band bearing the words "Live Kind."
A $20 donation, earmarked for a Wal-Mart or Home Depot gift card, bears the name and address of the donor. Badalucco bought $700 worth of gift cards. On Nov. 13 and 20, C.J. Wellington's, on New Hyde Park Road in Franklin Square, hosted a fund-raising brunch. Last Sunday, the Franklin Square Lions Club hosted a Holiday Pancake Breakfast at St. James the Just Church and raised more than $1,000.
Badalucco has not done it alone. When he went to Sears on North Franklin Avenue in Garden City to buy clothes and backpacks, he asked the manager for a discount. Clutching a Herald article and a letter from the Red Cross as proof, Badalucco explained that he was making the purchase with money raised for charity. He was awarded a 20 percent discount.
Carol Jockle, a Franklin Square resident and a teacher at the New York Institute of Technology's Central Islip campus, read about Orange-Aid and gave her 12 vocational transition program students an assignment to devise a way to help out. They threw a baby shower to benefit Orange's smallest citizens, and NYIT staff and students brought in new baby clothes and necessities. Sixteen boxes were delivered to Mt. Zion Baptist Church.
Margaret Ditusa, a Franklin Square mother active in the local Boy Scouts, established drop-off points for new and slightly used toys and collected six bags of goodies. "She scrubbed the gently used toys, bought batteries," Badalucco said. "Amazing."
Kevin Miller, a father of Carey students who is in the trucking industry, has helped Badalucco locate a shipper.
And the charity stretched beyond New York. Badalucco's cousin, a teacher in the Windsor School District in Vermont, sent science books and equipment to the West Orange-Cove school district.
"Without all this support, it would have never worked," Badalucco said, citing C.J. Wellington's owner John Costello and Franklin Square Chamber of Commerce member Bob Diehl as two vital cogs.
Badalucco was honored this week, along with other American Red Cross members in Nassau County, by state Sen. Michael Balboni, who lauded their hurricane relief efforts. He is considering making a return appearance to Orange during the upcoming Christmas break. He has received an invitation from the Mt. Zion clergy to address the congregation. So what would his message be to the faithful?
"Franklin Square is pretty cool," he said.
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