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Raven Elosiebo-Walker, MD Board Certified Dermatologist
VOL. XCII NO. 39
WWW.ATLANTAJEWISHTIMES.COM
OCTOBER 6, 2017 | 16 TISHREI 5778
Aprio Leads Caribbean Relief From Hurricanes By Logan C. Ritchie lritchie@atljewishtimes.com When Category 5 winds from Hurricane Irma shredded St. Thomas’ only hospital Wednesday, Sept. 6, Atlanta accounting firm Aprio was launched into action that carried through weeks of drama packed, like a Shakespeare play, with many characters, much heroism and a timely touch of coincidence. The day after Irma ravaged Schneider Regional Medical Center in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Jewish accounting manager Julie Reader of Aprio (the former Habif Arogeti & Wynne) reached a client who’s an orthopedic surgeon on St. Thomas and was in dire need of materials for a makeshift surgical site, as well as such basic needs as water and generators. While Reader set out to collect supplies, colleague Susan O’Dwyer planned a delivery. Her experience with humanitarian logistics stems from providing relief to Tuscaloosa, Ala., after her son lived through a tornado that hit April 2011. She emailed everyone on her contact list, looking for a pilot and a plane. Within 35 minutes Angel Flight Soars, a volunteer program based at DeKalb Peachtree Airport, arranged for Bob Brown to make room on a Sept. 8 flight to St. Thomas. “I kept telling pilot Brown, ‘I love you. This is amazing.’ And he responded,
Aprio managing director Robert Melnick arranges boxes to maximize space in a U-Haul truck bound to Miami with relief supplies.
‘Hey, if you want something done, ask a Jew to do it,’ ” O’Dwyer said. Aprio staff kept collecting supplies and innovating ways to deliver them. Conference rooms were overflowing. “If there are 100,000 people, what we sent was only a drop in the bucket,” O’Dwyer said about the Virgin Islands. The local work has continued as Hurricane Maria, which cut through the Virgin Islands and slammed Puerto Rico two weeks after Irma, has added to the needs in the Caribbean and the response across Jewish Atlanta. A swirl of activity and people came together for the islands: • Sally Mundell of The Packaged Good worked with Spanx to provide
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1,000 kits of shampoo, conditioner, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap and aspirin. • O’Dwyer’s doctor friend donated glucometers for people with diabetes. • Aprio sales manager Stephanie Oliver collected blankets and first-aid kits for 30 children from a church youth group. • Reader got 200 pounds of medical gloves from MedShare in Decatur. • Robert Melnick, a Jewish Aprio managing director and a master tactician, took inventory and packed supplies. • A donor gave $5,000 to High Tech Ministries for supplies. O’Dwyer and her husband used that money to buy tarps, brooms, mops and cleaning supplies. Ben Federman, brother of Chabad
INSIDE Candle Lighting �������������������������� 4 Israel News �����������������������������������6 Opinion ���������������������������������������10 Business �������������������������������������� 13 Food ���������������������������������������������18 Arts �����������������������������������������������25 Obituaries ���������������������������������� 29 Crossword ���������������������������������� 30 Marketplace ������������������������������� 31
Rabbi Asher Federman on St. Thomas and a Miami evacuee, solved the problem of delivering the supplies when jets were ruled out. A private equity investor, he arranged transport from Miami to St. Thomas, using his knowledge of shipping lines, custom forms and palletizing. “Aprio paid for a 20-foot U-Haul. It was packed so well, you couldn’t have slid a single piece of paper in there,” O’Dwyer said. Chabad of Atlanta congregant Aaron Holder, who weeks earlier drove a packed truck to Harvey victims in Texas, recruited two Life University classmates to drive the truck to Miami. Sandra Jean and Brett Anderson left Tuesday, Sept. 26, with toiletry kits, tarps, mops, buckets, brooms, other cleaning supplies, diapers, baby wipes, food, glucometers and medical gloves. Eight pallets, each 6 feet tall and nearly 100 pounds, were wrapped and ready to be loaded onto a container ship. When the truck was stuck in a line half a mile from the ship, Jean tracked down the harbor master, and working in the office were two St. Thomas natives, who pushed the truck to the front. After delays, the ship was due to depart Wednesday, Oct. 4. The Federal Emergency Management Agency also turned to Aprio, seeking O’Dwyer’s help to fly 185 satellite phones to St. Thomas. She and Doug Ross, who heads the Birthright Israel Foundation’s Atlanta board, worked with Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale to get the phones on a plane to the islands. Supplies and money from Aprio employees, Jewish community members, and O’Dwyer’s church, Birmingham Methodist in Alpharetta, are still pouring in, and she keeps looking for transportation to St. Thomas. “We haven’t even gotten to the cement, the 2-by-4s, the drywall. The logistics are staggering,” she said. ■