SCA Family Reaches Out to Own
Medieval Re-enactors Build Relay System to Help Hurricane Survivors
Last updated Saturday, September 10, 2005 11:28 PM CDT in Entertainment
By Becca Bacon Martin
The Other Way
The Morning News
While most of us stared into television screens and newspaper pages, devastated but helpless, Eric Francis found a way to put the grief over Hurricane Katrina into action -- a way for ordinary people with an extraordinary bond to help each other when help is needed most.
In Central Arkansas, Francis is known as the managing editor of The Times in North Little Rock. In the Barony of Small Gray Bear, a local chapter of the Kingdom of Meridies in the Society for Creative Anachronism, he is Lord Peregrine Fairchylde, a regional archery officer who jokingly calls himself "the benevolent dictator of flying sharp things."
A day or two after Hurricane Katrina demolished large portions of the Kingdom of Meridies and its Principality of Gleann Abhann, Lord Peregrine also became the volunteer in charge of "a multi-state hurricane relief effort." It's an undertaking he calls both "invigorating and a little intimidating at the same time."
"I was on the Gleann Abhann (Internet discussion) list, reading the e-mails -- I don't remember if it was Tuesday or Wednesday after the hurricane -- just looking at these descriptions of incredible destruction," he recalls. "And I, like everybody else, was thinking, 'How can we help?'"
Then Francis remembered an article he had written back in 1999 about a golden retriever rescue group called the Golden Hearts and its Canine Underground Railroad. The network of dog owners helped rescued retrievers find new homes, then drove them there in relays that carried the displaced critters as far away as New Hampshire. "I thought, 'There's no reason we can't do this with the kind of supplies everybody says are needed right now -- food, water, clothes," he relates.
Francis posted his thoughts on the SCA Internet site, and the next thing he knew, the idea was snowballing into a movement.
"In the first week, I heard from Pittsburgh, (the kingdoms of) An Tir in Washington state, Ealdormere in Canada, Ansteorra (Oklahoma and Texas), Calontir (which includes Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and the northwest tip of Arkansas) and Trimaris (Florida)," he marvels. "I'm not even going to try to list all the places that responded! Every day, I got another e-mail from somebody I had never heard of in my life who had looked on the Gleann Abhann list, seen this proposal and was writing to say, 'What can we do?'
"What was originally going to be an effort within the principality and the kingdom had blossomed into talk of a caravan from Arizona across Texas to Arkansas!"
Francis says he was cautioned by his wife that "for a lot of these people, it really makes more sense to give money to the Red Cross. And I accept that. However, there are people in the SCA who were just chomping at the bit to do something! They've got stuff in their closets, their larders, their basements, canned food and bottled water they can just pass on. And you just don't get the same kind of satisfaction out of writing a check as you do handing a bag of food to somebody you personally know."
However, Francis says, "it became harder to justify the relay method when you were talking about Arizona, Washington, New Hampshire, so for really distant people, we began to suggest they raise money and buy gift cards at Wal-Mart, Sears, Home Depot, Lowe's or a national gas station chain. Then what we can do is be a little more like the Red Cross: We can drive to Hattiesburg (Miss.) and buy what we need or buy it in Little Rock or Shreveport -- or when people get back to their homes, we can hand them a $50 Home Depot gift card or a $50 Wal-Mart gift card, and say, 'Here's a way to start rebuilding.'"
The first loads of SCA donations have already been transported from Fort Smith to Memphis and on to Jackson, Miss., and Baton Rouge, La. -- "the front lines," as Francis calls them. As roads open up, the supplies will be relayed to Hattiesburg, Gulfport and Biloxi. "Our final frontier is New Orleans," Francis says. "But at least we know where most of the members of (the Barony of) Axemoor are, and we can get stuff to the people who are housing them for the time being."
Francis says the relief effort is just getting started.
"We won't hit our full stride for another two or three weeks," he says. "Although my end of this effort is the short-term end, it will last six to eight weeks easily. Only then will most people be getting back to their homes."
At that point, the enormity of what has been lost will become real. For the people who invest their time and their passion in re-creating the Middle Ages, many valued possessions can't be replaced at Wal-Mart, Lowe's or Sears. They've lost all of their costumes -- we call it "garb" -- all their art supplies, the weapons with which they fight in medieval-style tournaments, the hand-illuminated scrolls with which their efforts are honored. Other relief efforts are getting under way to restore what was lost -- and to help find jobs and places to live for those who cannot go back home.
"I can really empathize with what it's going to take to get people back on their feet in the Society, much less in real life," Francis says.
Francis is quick to point out that he is "a single cog in a very large wheel. People all over the kingdom and all over the nation are, by their own initiative, putting together donation efforts." One of them, coordinated by Her Majesty Lethrenn, queen of Meridies, allows members as far away as Europe and Australia to make cash donations using a PayPal account. "Even they can make a direct and immediate impact," Francis says.
"Another thing I see this effort doing is relieving the pressure on the (mainstream) relief efforts," he adds. "It means that much more stuff the local Red Cross and churches and philanthropic groups will have to distribute to everyone else."
Francis is quick to reiterate that he's "not claiming any credit for this effort. The network was in place, the camaraderie already existed, the incredible amount of love for the people who were affected by the hurricane was there. I just pushed over the first domino in a long, long line."
Francis suggests that those outside the SCA who might want to help the effort make a donation to the Red Cross in honor of the Society or a local shire or barony. Interested Samaritans can also read more at http://maxandlethrenn.org/hurricane_relief/ on the World Wide Web or e-mail Francis at squirrelhenge@yahoo.com.
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