Ordinary Heroes

article by Kay Rector

The coronavirus pandemic has impacted everyone in Northeast Louisiana in some way. As of April 17, 2020, the Louisiana Department of Health reported 23,118 positive cases of COVID-19 statewide, with 830 of those cases in Northeast Louisiana. 470 cases were in Ouachita Parish, where 11 patients died from the disease.

Schools across the state are closed and shelter-in-place orders still restrict gathering, shopping and work activities. An unprecedented 16.8 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits during a three-week span in April 2020. In Louisiana, more than 80,000 unemployment claims were filed in just a one-week period. Businesses have closed and laid off workers at alarming rates.

With residents reeling from a sudden loss of income and families struggling to buy food and other basic necessities, agencies such as the Northeast Louisiana Food Bank and United Way of Northeast Louisiana have been overwhelmed as never before with requests for aid.

Throughout our community, ordinary citizens have gone to great lengths to offer help and hope at a time when so many are suffering. Good Samaritans abound in our community. BayouLife salutes all of the “ordinary heroes” who have given of themselves and their resources during this crisis.

It would be impossible to recognize all of the individuals and businesses who have done so much to help those in need. Here, we highlight a just a few of the “heroes” who make Northeast Louisiana a better place to live.

HUNTERS HELP THE HUNGRY

Louisiana is known as a “sportsman’s paradise,” a place where hunting wild game is a way of life for many. More than a sport, hunting puts food on the table. Avid hunters often have freezers stocked with venison, duck, wild turkey and other game meats. In the midst of a pandemic, local businessman Bill Petrus called on his fellow hunters to share that bounty with families in need.

Petrus is the owner of TP Outdoors Monroe, a sporting goods store specializing in hunting and outdoor equipment. In late March, as stay-at-home orders related to the coronavirus resulted in widespread unemployment, Petrus was moved by reports he saw on television and social media.

“I saw these stories about families who had lost all their income from being out of work,” Petrus says. “I could just see it coming–people were going hungry and were going to need some help. I had the idea to try to get hunters to donate some of their meat from last year’s hunt to give to people.”

Petrus reached out to hunters in Northeast Louisiana who make up his customer base and requested donations of frozen, commercially processed venison and other meat. His friend Don Plunk helped arrange for a refrigerated truck to store the donated meat. They set up the truck, generously loaned to their cause by John Trainer of Borden Milk Products, in the parking lot of TP Outdoors in Monroe. Petrus was also able to purchase large quantities of cereal, baby food and other non-perishable food items at cost from Eric Mansell of B & E Wholesale in West Monroe.

Through radio announcements and a social media site titled “Hunters Feed the Hungry,” Petrus spread the word that he and his employees would be giving out food in front of his store at 3000 Breard Street in Monroe each Saturday in April.

Petrus says that to his surprise, local hunters were a little slow to donate at first. By the afternoon of Friday, April 3rd he had only collected about 150 pounds of food and was really anxious about not having enough food to supply the crowd they were expecting. “I was sitting on my couch, just thinking about what I was going to do and how we were going to feed these people when my phone rang,” Petrus recalls. “It was like a blessing from God.” An anonymous donor was able to provide almost 2000 pounds of frozen meat product. Petrus, his son-in-law and other volunteers worked late into the night to stock the truck with the donated food.

The next morning, hundreds of people lined up in the rain in the parking lot on Breard. Petrus and his store employees, along with several volunteers, gave out enough food to provide over 1400 meals. They also made deliveries to families without transportation, giving away everything they had collected. Petrus says his store employees worked tirelessly in the rain all day, making sure each family that needed help was served.

As word spread about the “Hunters Help the Hungry” program, more hunters began to donate from their freezers. Some purchased mass quantities of food from Sam’s to be given away. One TP Outdoors customer even bought a cow from a local farmer and had it butchered and processed into hamburger meat for distribution through their food drive. On Saturday, April 14th, 200 families picked up food bags in front of TP Outdoors Monroe, and Petrus and his employees delivered food to another 50 families over the next few days.

Although his store has been closed to the public during the pandemic, Petrus has worked hard to give back to the community that has supported his family for almost a century. “We’ve been in business for 93 years,” Petrus says. “My great-grandfather started it and my father ran it. I own this store now and my brother owns the other store in West Monroe.” Petrus says they will continue the food drive as long as donations keep coming in. “There’s a true need out there,” says Petrus. “People are hurting. Anything we can do to help out we want to do.”

HELPING STITCH BY STITCH

Sandy McMillan is an interior designer and owner of Haven, a local gift and home boutique on Forsythe Avenue in Monroe. Like so many local retailers, McMillan’s shop closed in mid-March in accordance with the Governor’s orders. Although McMillan has still been able to provide for some of her customers through social media posting, online shopping and contactless delivery, business has certainly not been booming. Instead, she found herself with an abundance of time and inventory on her hands during the normally busy month of April.

McMillan’s interior design firm, a companion business to Haven known as Intelligent Designs, has been in operation for 22 years. Through Intelligent Designs, which specializes in custom draperies, McMillan employs a full-time seamstress and operates an offsite drapery workroom where her clients’ draperies, pillows and other custom items are created. Her workroom maintains an inventory of fabric and sewing supplies and is the largest fabric resource in Northeast Louisiana.

McMillan says she read about the shortage of Personal Protective Equipment for those in the medical field and the lack of supplies necessary to make the needed masks and other PPE. “I realized that I had all those materials,” says McMillan. “So, I reached out to a friend who works at St. Francis and said if y’all ever have a need for fabric face masks let me know.”

Aimee Kane, President of the St. Francis Foundation and Vice President of Business Development and Strategy, responded immediately. St. Francis supplied McMillan and her seamstress with specific instructions and requirements for the masks. “They requested a more fitted style mask that has a filter pocket and a metal nose piece that makes it more fitted around the face,” McMillan says. “We made two sizes, so they would accommodate most people.”

Since her store was closed, McMillan enlisted the Haven staff to cut out the fabric pieces. Each mask requires four separate fabric cuts. The seamstress then spent hours sewing the masks together. Using all the supplies they had in stock, McMillan and her crew were able to donate 80 masks to St. Francis for use by the hospital staff. McMillan also donated her inventory of non-woven polypropylene fabric, which she cut into squares to be used as filters for the masks.

McMillan plans to make more masks just as soon as she can replenish her supplies. “I’m so grateful for the way my customers have supported me and other small businesses during this time,” McMillan says. “I feel like if we can help someone in our community, why would we not choose to do that?”

CARING FOR THE PATIENTS

Ashton Hamby is accustomed to crisis. As a registered nurse working in the Intensive Care Unit of St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe, she deals with highly charged emergency situations as a regular part of her job. However, caring for critically ill patients during the COVID-19 pandemic has been unlike anything she and her colleagues in the medical profession have experienced.

The Intensive Care Unit to which Hamby is assigned was the first at St. Francis to receive COVID-19 patients. While there are multiple ICUs within the hospital, her unit was specifically configured to isolate and exclusively treat these patients. As of mid-April, the unit had 10 occupied ICU beds. Less critical COVID-19 patients are treated in other isolated areas of the hospital.
Hamby says her team was as prepared as possible to accommodate the influx of critically ill COVID-19 patients. She credits the leadership of Dr. John Bruchhaus and other doctors as well as the St. Francis administrative staff for the effective way the nurses have been able to respond to the crisis.

Hamby worked in the Emergency Room for three years before transferring to ICU. She typically works three to four days a week, from 7:00a.m. to 7:00p.m. “We’re all working more hours than usual right now,” she says. “It’s all very different.”

Besides the ever-present personal protective equipment (PPE), the hospital looks different due to the absence of family members and other visitors. These patients are alone except for the hospital staff. Hamby says that she and her fellow nurses have become involved with the patients’ families in a way they never have before.

The hospital provided a dedicated phone and set up an iPad for the nursing staff to use to help family members “visit” with their hospitalized loved ones. The nurses schedule virtual visits for families to Facetime or talk with their patient. “These are ICU patients and some of them are on ventilators,” Hamby says. “We have all of our PPE gear on. So, it can be kind of frightening, but at the same time it means so much for the family to be able to see them for a few minutes.”

Nurses are facilitating virtual visits in other areas of the hospital as well, allowing less critical patients and family members to see and talk with one another in more interactive sessions. In this new role, nurses are using technology to boost patient morale and make recovery a bit easier.

In Hamby’s personal life, things are also extremely different. She is married with a one year old child. Her husband is a school teacher. With schools closed, he has been working from home during the pandemic. As a precaution, he and their child have been staying in his mother’s home during the week while Hamby is working. Although she misses them, this routine helps lower their risk of exposure. She thoroughly cleans and disinfects everything before they return home for her days off. For weeks, Hamby has refrained from visiting her parents or grandparents for fear of exposing them to the virus. Because she has seen firsthand the effects of this virus, she urges everyone to take these kinds of precautions, and to take this disease very seriously.

“I’ve never seen people come together quite like they have during this,” says Hamby. “Doctors, nurses, pharmacists—everyone is working really hard and trying to help each other like never before. Nursing may never be the same after this. We’re all going through this together, and as one of our doctors said recently, this may well be the most important thing we do in our nursing careers.”

THE GAIL CUPIT PROJECT

One evening in March, Gail Cupit was scrolling through Facebook posts on her home computer when she came across “NELA NEEDS,” a Facebook page dedicated to serving those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Created by local residents Bethany Jett and Brandon Rodgers, NELA NEEDS acts as a virtual clearinghouse, connecting those in need with those willing to offer help to others in the Northeast Louisiana.

ying how this was affecting them. A lot seemed to be from people who worked in the restaurant industry,” recalls Cupit. “I told my husband that we needed to try to help these people.”

Gail and her husband, Gene Cupit, both work for Entergy and have remained employed throughout the pandemic. “We’re very fortunate. We’re working from home and we’ve still got paychecks coming in,” says Cupit. “I cannot lay my head on my pillow at night knowing there are people who need food when I have a home and a full pantry and the means to help them.”

Cupit immediately reached out to a few of those posting on NELA NEEDS, asked for their addresses and offered to deliver groceries to them. She and Gene began making grocery runs, buying food and delivering them to families who, due to COVID-19 job losses, could no longer afford food. They had been making deliveries for about three days when Gail saw a post asking for assistance for a family of nine—two adults and seven children. It was at this point that Gail decided to ramp up her efforts.

“Rather than taking this family of nine just thirty or forty dollars’ worth of food on my own, I thought I would ask if anybody else would like to contribute. That way, I could take them a lot more than just a couple of days’ worth,” explains Cupit. She posted a request on the NELA NEEDS site, asking for contributions of $5.00 from anyone willing to help. “I simply asked for $5.00 donations,” says Cupit. “Our plan was to get a few donations and be able to buy this family enough food for a couple of weeks until they could qualify for assistance.”

Within minutes of posting her request for $5.00 donations, Cupit started receiving money in her PayPal account. In less than an hour, she had collected $180.00. By the time she and her husband arrived at the grocery store, the contributions had grown to $284.41. Using those funds, Cupit was able to buy that family a large supply of food and other necessities.

“I really felt like that was the end, but throughout that day the donations kept coming in,” Cupit recalls. “By the end of that night I had $756.00. My phone just continued to ding all through the night.” Cupit says strangers began to contact her through Facebook Messenger, wanting to donate and offering to volunteer time and money to her cause.

Over the next couple of weeks, with donations continuing to pour in, Cupit was making more and more grocery runs, shopping for multiple families at a time and making four or five deliveries each day. “It quickly became overwhelming,” recalls Cupit.

When the number of requests became more than Cupit and her husband could fill on their own, they enlisted the help of friends. Sandra Manley, Erin Finley and Connie Parker have all worked tirelessly alongside Cupit, shopping and making deliveries. Bridgette Harrison, owner of Gator Girls Catering, and her employees prepared casseroles and other ready-made meals with groceries purchased by Cupit.

All the money collected by Cupit goes directly to purchase and deliver food and household items for families in need. From the beginning, Gene Cupit has carefully accounted for all donations and expenditures, and makes sure those donating can see where their money is being spent. In the early days of the project, Gail posted receipts on the NELA NEEDS Facebook page.

“When I would come out of the grocery store, I would take a picture of the receipt showing how much was spent, what we bought and when. I would write the name of the family and the address where the items were going. We were posting on NELA NEEDS constantly, so that everyone would know which needs were being met and check those off,” says Cupit. Real-time postings became impossible as donations and delivery volumes grew, but detailed records remain readily available to donors.

As of April 15th, Cupit had collected and spent $27,651.96 providing food to local families and individuals in need. While most donations have come through NELA NEEDS, Cupit says money has poured in from all over Northeast Louisiana. Her neighbors have left money on her doorstep. Fellow members of Christian Life Church have sent money to support her cause. “So many people have donated to this,” says Cupit. “We’ve had Walmart workers come up to us while we’re shopping and give us cash from their pockets, wanting to help. It is amazing how many people in our community want to help others through this crisis.”

Cupit says the reward that comes from helping someone, especially those struggling to feed their children, far outweighs the work involved. “Everyone has been so grateful. So many people can’t make it to the Food Bank or area churches that are providing food because they have no way to go.”

As an example of that gratitude, Cupit shared a text message from a mother with pancreatic cancer. She and her husband were suddenly out of income and unable to grocery shop for themselves and their five children. Her text to Cupit reads:

“I know I didn’t have very many words while you were here but I was shocked and speechless! You don’t know how much worry and feeling like we’ve failed you have taken off of mine and my husband’s shoulders. I never expected so much but you went above and beyond! After we got everything put away my oldest son (14) looked at me with teary eyes and said I’m gonna eat something now if that’s ok. Of course it was because he has acted like a little adult this past week and not ate like he usually would because he wanted to make sure his little brothers had eaten first. Y’all showed my boys the good in people and I will be forever grateful for that! You will be blessed beyond measure for all you are doing for this community. Thank y’all from the bottom of our hearts! When all this is done and our jobs get back on track, I will for sure take my boys out and pass it forward as much as we can!”

Cupit insists she is just doing what she is called to do. “I would love to say it was some great revelation, but for me it was just something that I started,” she says. “The Lord gives us all gifts. Whether you use them or not is up to you. I believe that this is simply one of my gifts. I wanted to help and the Lord said ‘Gail, this is what you do.”