Truckloads of supplies were delivered to tornado victims in Alabama and Tennessee last week thanks to the initiative of the band programs at high schools in Houston County.
Warner Robins High and Houston County High band trailers delivered goods to Tuscaloosa, Ala., while Perry High and Northside High band trailers traveled to Bradley County, Tenn. Veterans High contributed to the loads delivered to Tennessee, where hundreds of homes were lost in the storms that swept through the area at the end of April.
The idea for the band programs to spearhead a drive for tornado victims came after Houston County High band director Wally Shaw talked to a friend of his, Randall Coleman, an associate band director at the University of Alabama.
“We had these band trailers sitting here empty, and I talked to the other band directors and got it started,” said Shaw.
“From the beginning, I knew it was going to work. I have been in this community for 20 years. The folks in this area, you tell them you need something, and you will get it.”
Shaw, who traveled with the group over to Tuscaloosa, said the pictures shown on television don’t do the destruction justice.
“We were talking to one guy who had just been let back into where his home used to be to sort through some stuff,” Shaw said. “He told us that while he was digging through the rubble where his house stood, he started finding stuff -- but it wasn’t his stuff. He was finding other people’s belongings that had been dropped there by the tornado.”
Lisa Ratley, a band parent from Warner Robins and an Alabama native, also traveled to Tuscaloosa to deliver the goods. Ratley, who made a trip to Cullman, Ala., immediately after the storm to take her family water and ice, said when the idea was raised at a band booster meeting, she immediately volunteered.
“I am from there, and I had been over already and seen the damage that had just broke my heart,” said Ratley.
Ryder donated the trucks that pulled the trailers, and Lowe’s donated pallets and shrink wrap. Monetary donations from the community were so generous that after paying for gas for four trucks, there was enough money to send to the Red Cross for the Joplin, Mo., tornado victims.
Ratley said most of the donations came from residents who didn’t have any ties to either the band programs or the tornado victims.
“They would pull in to our donation site with full SUVs or trucks. They didn’t have any family over there, didn’t know any band kids,” she said.
“But they had seen the tornado on the news and wanted to help. That’s the kind of people that live here.”
Ben Clemons, incoming Houston County High band booster president, also made the trip over to Alabama to deliver the donations.
“I was born and raised in Alabama, and those people needed our help. It was a big task to fill those trucks, but with the help of our community, I knew we could do it.”
