“I am the president of the Bank of America, and we are going to send you $100,000,” said the man on the other end of the phone.
India Chumney, director of Communities in Schools in San Antonio, had been on the radio talking about the work of the Diocese of West Texas, Episcopal Relief and Development and her own organization.
She had described the needs of children displaced by the hurricanes and now ready to return to school. The phone call came in response to her call for school uniforms, books and supplies that the organizations sought to provide.
At the request of Chumney’s mother, Betty Chumney, ERD had sent an emergency grant for $10,000 for uniforms and supplies. It was a big help. But with 2,400 students, it wasn’t going to be enough. That’s what the bank president heard before he picked up the phone. “So that seed money that we got from ERD really has raised the money that has funded this whole program,” said Betty Chumney, bishop’s deputy for world mission in the Diocese of West Texas.
Rag doll distribution
Her enthusiasm doesn’t stop there. She has other projects at work in those shelters in San Antonio. Her favorite is the dolls, the rag dolls that Mary Page Jones of Wyoming has women all over the world making for children in war zones and other places of disaster. The women at St. Barnabas in Fredericksburg, Texas, had made 80 dolls. Chumney had them and wanted to get them to the children at Kelly USA shelter.
She called her daughter to have one of the counselors from Communities in Schools – working daily in the shelters -- deliver them. The next morning, she said, her daughter got a call from that counselor. “That was the best tool we had last night,” she quoted him saying. “We had so many children who had been through the horror of Katrina, a lot of them separated from their families. They were alone in a new place that was big and scary. I spent all night being Santa Claus, giving those children the dolls.”
The response was remarkable. “They were agitated and crying, but when they were given a doll they would get in their beds and go to sleep … Is there any possibility we could get more of the dolls?” That’s all it took, and Betty Chumney was on the phone with Jones. “You know,” said Jones, “I’ve been trying to find out how in the world we can plug these dolls into this horrible disaster.” She sent another 500.
