Flood of kindness: giving / getting

Agway workers stacked up a donation / women at an ad hoc flood relief distribution center gratefully receive it.

So, I was down in Plainfield last Sunday taking photos of the aftermath of the floods that swept Vermont again this year—to the day of last year's devastation. This village, set along the Winooski River, has a pizza shop, a tiny food coop, an iconic used/rare book store, and older houses, many with small, unfussy vegetable and flower gardens.

The flooding river rushed around and through many of the buildings, damaging some with boulders, water, and silt and sweeping away homes that had stood for many scores of years. No people died, but never expecting that the buildings would be swept downstream, some of the residents who hastily evacuated in the dark of a rain-drenched night left behind their pets. A few of these washed down the river with their buildings and are presumed dead.

Like the people, some of the surviving pets needed shelter, food, and care.

I was photographing the basement of a church that had set up an ad hoc distribution center for essentials. Volunteers had posted needs on a white board and were discussing the lack of dog and cat food. They had approached Walmart for donations, but would be required—mid-crisis—to submit tax forms and jump through other bureaucratic hoops.

I was heading in the direction of Montpelier and said I would stop and see what I could round up. I went to Agway, a locally owned and staffed hardware store and nursery.

It was a Sunday and the only manager there was from the nursery section. When she said she really didn't have authority over the pet food, I said I could come back on Monday. Wait here, she said, and returned about 10 minutes later. You can see her here with a cart stacked with large bags of high-end Science Diet kibble.

In the next pic, are the women who staffed the church distribution center receiving the food.

The Agway people never asked for my name or ID, or for a receipt. They just wanted to help. And they did.