Catholic Charities Meets Demands of Sept. 11 Victims

By Michael F. Flach
HERALD Staff Writer
(From the issue of 9/5/02)

Chad Leach had been a Washington, D.C., firefighter for 18 months when the plane crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11. Leach joined other emergency crews from the District and Arlington County to battle the fire and rescue the victims of the terrorist attack.

Leach and his colleagues spent hours trying to contain the fire. "It was incredibly hot," he recalls. "There was jet fuel, smoke and fire." The member of Nativity Parish in Burke eventually had to be wheeled out of the Pentagon on a stretcher, suffering from heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation. He worried throughout his six-month recovery, "What could I have done differently?"

Leach’s disability pay helped support his family for a short period of time, but he quickly realized how much he had depended upon overtime pay to make ends meet.

During this traumatic time, Leach’s wife, Charlotte, was experiencing a difficult pregnancy. The Leach’s fourth child, Colin, was born with respiratory problems and spent 15 days in intensive care. The daycare center Charlotte operated in the family’s home was discontinued because of her difficult pregnancy and the demands of Chad’s recovery. Money problems quickly escalated.

The Leaches realized their financial and emotional situation was desperate. They approached Permanent Deacon Bill Korpi at Nativity Church for help. Korpi offered two words of advice. "Call Rose."

Rose LaRocca and her staff at Christ House and Emergency Assistance in Alexandria were ready to help. "We were able to assist the Leaches with a variety of needs, both financial and emotional," said LaRocca, who also happens to be a member of Nativity Parish.

"You just can’t realize how much stress you took off our whole family," Charlotte Leach later told Catholic Charities’ officials. "Now I can sleep through the whole night."

The Leaches were just one of 850 families assisted by Catholic Charities since Sept. 11. More than 2,000 individuals, the majority of whom were Hispanic or Middle Eastern, received help.

Grief and loss related services were provided to 157 individuals, including burial costs for 16 victims, said Ryan Lovett, disaster relief coordinator for Catholic Charities. The bulk of the people received economic-employment related assistance. A wide variety of professions were impacted by the tragedy, including taxi drivers, hotel workers, food service staff, people in the travel and tourism industries and contract workers with the Pentagon.

"Last fall was a blur," said LaRocca, whose office juggled the surge in Sept. 11 victims, along with its regular Thanksgiving/Christmas traffic. The case load from September through December 2001 more than doubled from the same time frame in 2000.

Christ House saw a large increase in the number of people who arrived for its annual Christmas dinner. "We ran out of turkey," said LaRocca. "That never happened before."

In addition, Christ House distributed 352 food baskets and "adopted" 558 families at Christmas, an increase of more than 350 families from the previous year. "This year we’ll focus on the children, rather than entire families," LaRocca said.

Although Christ House has not received a new Sept. 11 case in several months, LaRocca said the problem now is the economy. "We’ve seen the top and the bottom of the economic spectrum," she said, referring to the number of clients her office has helped who represent two-income families. "People are crying for affordable housing, especially families with children. But there are no places available."

Fairfax County has a two-month waiting list for emergency shelter.

"We never know what’s going to happen," said LaRocca, but she expects to see an increase in the number of homeless arriving at her door this fall.

Catholic Charities has benefited from the generosity of local Catholics, as well as national organizations. Lovett said 100 percent of the money received from the diocese and other donations will go directly to Sept. 11 victims. Lovett’s salary and the rent for his office is covered by a grant from Catholic Charities USA, the national office headquartered in Alexandria.

Lovett said the agency has provided a variety of services, including: burial and funeral expenses of victims; immediate and direct financial assistance to survivors and their families; assistance to those who lost their jobs; food, clothing, transportation and prescription medication to those in need; job referral services; legal assistance for housing and immigration matters; outreach to immigrants; grief counseling; professional training seminars; collaboration with other interfaith agencies; and prayers for the deceased and other victims.

"While our efforts to provide direct financial assistance will continue, we are starting a targeted effort to ensure that we are serving those who need our help on long-term issues, such as mental health and health care," said Lovett, who expects the full recovery process to take up to three years.

"Our long-term programs are how we will deliver on our commitment to help people cope with the Sept. 11 disaster throughout the course of their recovery," he said.

In this area, Catholic Charities will sponsor an Oct. 5 seminar at St. Bernadette Church in Springfield for those who experienced the death of a loved one (see sidebar). Mila Ruiz Tecala, founder and director of the Center for Loss and Grief, will present the workshop.

"CCDA is committed to focusing its attention on those special populations who fall through the cracks of other agency’s programs and efforts and who are thereby more vulnerable to disaster, including the elderly, disabled, poor, non-English speaking, undocumented and children," Lovett said.

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