Late Thanksgiving Morning in Rockaway Beach: At the YANA (You Are Never Alone) Community Center on Rockaway Beach Boulevard and Beach 113th Street

The ride from St. Jacobi to Rockaway was a quick one, and we witnessed a lot of destruction and debris driving past Riis Park, Neponsit and Belle Harbor before we arrived at the YANA (You Are Never Alone) community center, a storefront on the north side of Rockaway Beach Boulevard at Beach 113th Street, where we volunteers gathered to await assignments.

We were told to go over to St. Camillus Roman Catholic Church on Beach 100th Street, a place we know well,

and with our driver being sent to search the peninsula for diesel fuel, our group joined others walking along Rockaway Beach Boulevard.

Rite-Aid at Beach 108th was open, we noticed, as we went along that familiar boulevard, passing the apartment buildings where our Grandma Sylvia and Grandpa Nat, our Grandma Ethel and Grandpa Herb lived, our great-aunt and great-uncle Tillie and Morris lived, and where we ourselves spent months and months of lives.

until we got to St. Camillus.

Thanksgiving Morning in Sunset Park: Occupy Sandy Relief at St. Jacobi Lutheran Church

Since we're useless at food prep or cooking, after we dropped off our donations for Occupy Sandy's Thanksgiving dinners at the kitchen at St. Johns Episcopal Church in Bay Ridge, we went up Fourth Avenue to Sunset Park to report for more suitable duty at one of the Occupy Sandy Recovery centers, St. Jacobi Lutheran Church, a beehive of frenetic activity.

It is a distribution and drop-off center,

and cars were lined up Fourth Avenue outside on both sides of the streets, getting loaded with food as Occupy Sandy volunteers in bright yellow vests skillfully directed the vehicles.

At the reception area, we filled our name, address, email, and phone; made a nametag with our first name;

and were told to report to the church sanctuary for new volunteer orientation

facilitated by Abraham, who explained a lot in a short period of time

in the spirit of the Occupy movement and an awareness of the needs of both volunteers (make sure you take care of yourself first, he said, and not overwork) and the people we will be working with.

There were lines outside for drivers and a shorter one for those of us who didn't have a car.

Four of us were assigned to go to Rockaway with Jordi from Bed-Stuy and we got into his car and were off,

our destination: Beach 113th Street in Rockaway.

We were excited to be going to a place we considered home but also a little afraid we'd be depressed at seeing destruction and devastation in an area where we spent so much of our life.