Indianapolis parish reaches out to Alabama storm victims

Students from St. Pius X School in Indianapolis load supplies into a semitrailer on May 6. Two days later, the packed semitrailer departed for Alabama to help residents affected by the April 27 tornadoes that caused more than 230 deaths and more than $2 billion in damages in the southern state. (Photo by John Shaughnessy)

By John Shaughnessy

In happier times, Vickie Bastnagel made the drive from Indiana to Alabama with the wonderful sense of anticipation that a mother has for seeing one of her children.

From 2005 through 2010, she had traveled south several times a year from Indianapolis to visit her son, Greg Cage, while he was a student and basketball player at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

So when Bastnagel saw the television news reports about the April 27 tornadoes that left a trail of death and destruction through Alabama and neighboring states—including killing six University of Alabama students—she felt heartsick.

She also felt a need to help.

The technology teacher at St. Pius X School in Indianapolis started a drive at the school and the parish to collect relief supplies for people whose lives had been devastated by the tornadoes that caused more than 230 deaths and more than $2 billion in damages in Alabama.

And on May 8—Mother’s Day—the mother of seven drove with her husband Phil and their son, Ramiro, to Tuscaloosa with a semitrailer packed with donations that included blankets, towels, diapers, paper goods, stuffed animals and personal hygiene items.

“When I saw what the area looked like on television, it took my breath away,” Bastnagel recalls. “So I called the pastor at the parish where Greg attended as a student—St. Francis of Assisi Parish. He said the parish was fine, but the Catholic Charities there could use help. I talked to Sister Carol Ann Gray, and she told me some sad stories. We asked what they needed, and she gave me a list.”

When St. Pius parishioners responded overwhelmingly to requests for donations, Bastnagel knew that the van she planned to take to Tuscaloosa wouldn’t be big enough. So she contacted Catholic Charities Indianapolis for help, a call that eventually led to a commitment of a semitrailer and a driver for the trip from Piper Logistics, a transportation company in Indianapolis.

“We always try to do what we can to help people in need,” says Greg Piper, a member of St. Simon the Apostle Parish in Indianapolis and one of four brothers who owns the company. “Our business philosophy is that God takes care of us, and we basically take care of what God asks us to do.”

As the truck headed south, so did the three members of the Bastnagel family. When they drove through Tuscaloosa on the morning of May 9, they were shocked by the scene that stretched before them.

“Everything looked fine, and then it looked like a bomb went off,” Bastnagel says. “I asked my husband to tell me where Greg’s apartment was, to let me know how close he would have been. Phil said, ‘Turn around. It’s right behind you.’ ”

The apartment building still stood, but all she could see in front of her were houses in shambles.

“We drove from 15th Street to 30th Street, an area about a mile wide that was totally destroyed,” Bastnagel says. “I tried to imagine what it must have been like for parents who drove in there to pick up their kids from college. It was very traumatizing.”

A touch of hope came at 9 a.m. on May 9 when they delivered the truck to Mission Helpers of the Sacred Heart Sister Carol Ann Gray, the regional director of Catholic Social Services of West Alabama.

“She’s a real spitfire,” Bastnagel says. “She shook our hands. When we gave her the $7,200 that had been collected at the parish, she said, ‘That calls for hugs.’ ”

The donations from St. Pius X Parish were one of the first responses that Catholic Social Services of West Alabama received, according to Sister Carol Ann.

“The one thing we want to convey to people is our gratitude,” Sister Carol Ann says. “We have been taken aback by the generosity of the Catholic dioceses and parishes across the country. It’s a time when the knowledge of being a universal Church becomes clear. In the middle of a tragedy like this, so many of our clients, parishioners and neighbors need help. To know that we’re not alone means so much.”

More than 10,000 homes were destroyed by the violent storms, she notes. As people are slowly finding new places to live, they have depended upon the donations of new houseware items to start life anew. It will be a long process of rebuilding homes and lives, she says. Still, she draws a small measure of hope in knowing that the response of the Catholic Church across the country is not only changing lives, but also changing perceptions.

“The Catholic community is very small here—one or two or three percent in the Diocese of Birmingham,” Sister Carol Ann says. “For the community to see the kind of response we’re getting from the Catholic Church helps people see that we don’t need to be feared.”

The images of the collection effort and her journey to Tuscaloosa have stayed fresh for Bastnagel.

“It was such a whirlwind,” she says. “When we got home, I was like, ‘Did we do all this in a week?’ People were so generous in giving money and dropping off carloads of stuff. You just wish you could do more.”

(Persons interested in volunteering in Tuscaloosa this summer or helping in the current flood relief efforts in southern Indiana are encouraged to log on to www.archindy.org, and click on “Southern Storm Recovery” for information and to sign up. Anyone interested in donating financially to help communities in the southern states affected by tornadoes and help people affected by the floods in southern Indiana is asked to send contributions to the archdiocese’s Mission Office, P.O. Box 1410, Indianapolis, IN 46206. Proceeds will be shared equally between the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office of National Collections and the archdiocese to assist the people in need.) †