Saturday, November 3, 2012

When you're in Chaos, it's best to have friends.

Photo by David Gard/The Star-Ledger, POOL) 
Like many of you, I've spent a good chunk of my free time following the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In a little over a decade, we've had to watch as New York pulls itself up by it's bootstraps after something outside of their hands knocks them on their butts twice.  New York is the capital of the world in many respects, and for those of you that know me, you know how hard that it is for me.  (I hate the Yankees so much that I don't even like New York style Pizza.) 
AP Photo/Mike Groll


Despite my perfectly understandable opinions of the most overrated team in baseball (re:jealousy) I believe you should always save a dance for the man that brought you to it.   Looking at the photos of Coney Island and the New Jersey Boardwalk reminded me of all those that worked and invented and entertained so that the family entertainment industry could be born.  In one day, those operations were washed away.

Having lived through microcosms of these disaster ourselves, I can't help but sympathize.  In no way can I compare the plight of Metropolis Resort's basement flooding for two months or being struck by lightning and losing nearly every piece of computer equipment or being snowed in at the resort in one of our lovely blizzards.  But when you throw all of these and more into one storm and turn up the dial, you can't help but feel for the millions affected.

But as I've watched these tragedies unfold time and time again, I've realized that watching tv with my sympathies won;t make the situations recover any faster.  We talked in a managers' meeting about a way we could help and here is what we came up with. 

Until December 20th, Action City will donate $5 from every Wristband Wednesday admission, Chaos Waterpark will donate $1 from every $5 Thursday and Dairy Queen will donate $1 from every large blizzard.   We will also be taking additional donations at each desk.  All this money will go to the American Red Cross Hurricane Relief Fund to help the East Coast rebuild.

Hope to see you down here.