After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, we saw images of unimagined devastation. It’s clear that these images will continue for some time. As various groups mounted efforts to help people recover from this disaster, I wondered how successful they would be. I must confess I was a bit skeptical.

First, it has been less than a year since the Asian tsunami. U.S. charities collected nearly $1.3 billion to aid that relief effort. Second, the sudden surge in gasoline prices caused many people to be concerned about the impact that will have on their standard of living.

My skepticism passed quickly. Americans have mounted a relief effort that has no precedent in the history of our country. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that in the 10 days after Sept. 11, 2001, Americans donated $239 million to related charitable causes. In the 10 days after Katrina, $587 million was raised to help victims of what it characterizes as “the largest displacement of Americans since the Civil War.” And the fundraising continues, with telethons and appeals of all kinds, ranging from special concerts to children selling lemonade to special collections at churches.

As the president and chief executive officer of United Way of Monmouth County, I admit to watching this unprecedented outpouring of compassion with a mixture of pride and concern. Pride, because once again the people of this great country have shown how generous they can be when moved by the devastating consequences of a catastrophic event. Concern, because of the impact it might have on this community’s ability to attend to the needs of our neighbors in the Monmouth County.

Thousands of people in our community need help. As we work to improve our own quality of life, it’s essential that we remember the real and often desperate right here in our own backyard.

We launch the 2005 United Way Campaign knowing there are many residents here in Monmouth County who are counting on us to help them in their time of need. And I’m optimistic that the generosity and compassion of the people from our community will again prevail, as it did in the campaign following Sept. 11, 2001.

Together, with United Way, we can move families and individuals beyond poverty, allow seniors to live independently and with dignity and respect, ensure children a quality start, and work together to rebuild lives and shape communities right here in Monmouth County.

So, even though there may be more demands than ever on our resources, please remember our friends and neighbors in our own community who are struggling to keep their lives together.

If I could wave a magic wand over our fundraising efforts this year, I would wish for a giant campaign poster with tens of thousands of people we help right here in Monmouth County, 365 days a year. That poster would have the following caption: “We’re counting on your help.”

Now, more than ever, your community needs your support!

Philip A. Brown III

president and CEO

United Way

Howell

EMTs waited for call that never came

After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, a task force of 100 volunteer emergency medical technicians and 50 paramedics equipped with ambulances and rescue equipment was prepared to mobilize to the disaster area. The Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) required us to stand ready and await formal request from Louisiana and federal officials. Had we mobilized without EMAC’s blessing, neither our liability nor considerable expenses would have been covered. As infants and senior citizens died from lack of assistance, we remained in New Jersey, horrified and paralyzed by EMAC’s bureaucratic delays.

The woefully inadequate response highlighted the communication breakdown at the federal level and between New Jersey’s Department of Law & Public Safety and Department of Health and Senior Services. This haphazard response warrants thorough review and assessment at all levels before disaster strikes again.

Sue Van Orden

president

N.J. State First Aid Council

Lincoln Park

Church to host talk about organ donations this weekend

National Donor Sabbath Weekend was established in 1996 on the second weekend before Thanksgiving.

It is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Hu-man Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Healthcare Systems Bureau, Division of Transplantation (www.organdonor.gov/

natldonorsabbath.htm).

It was established because of the chronic shortage of human organ donors, and to encourage clergy of all denominations (Christian and non-Christian alike) to dispel some of the myths surrounding human organ donation, and to remind their congregations (at their respective Sabbath services) that human organ donation is morally acceptable according to their respective religious beliefs. It aims to change the perception about organ donation from macabre to an act of charity, and (in the case of Catholics) to call attention to the pope’s support and encouragement of the practice.

Here at the Church of St. Leo the Great Roman Catholic Church, we just happen to have a college-age parishioner, Margaret Lapsanski, who underwent a life-saving double lung transplant one year ago in response to a lifelong bout with cystic fibrosis.

She is a particularly poised and deeply reflective person, with a keen grasp of the moral, spiritual and psychological aspects of this matter.

With the consent of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Trenton, and in voluntary cooperation with the New Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing Network, she and I will jointly use the homily time at all of our regularly scheduled weekend Masses on this year’s 10th annual National Donor Sabbath Weekend (Nov. 12 at 5:30 p.m., and Nov. 13 at 7 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.; same presentation each time) to share her story and to explain the moral acceptability of donating human organs.

Organ donor registry cards from the New Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing Network (www.sharenj.org) will be available at the church doorways after all Masses.

Also after each Mass, we will have free coffee, juice, doughnuts and bagels in the church basement, and Miss Lapsanski will be available then for further discussion.

The Rev. David A. Adams

parochial vicar

St. Leo the Great Roman Catholic Church

Lincroft section of Middletown

The real cost of living in New Jersey

New Jersey is a wealthy state — the median family income is above $70,000. Yet the cost of living is also high in New Jersey. And, a significant number of people struggle with not enough income. In 2003, there were over 700,000 New Jerseyans living below the federal poverty level for a family of three ($14,824). One-fifth of the population had household income at or below $29,648.

The Legal Services of N.J. Poverty Research Institute released an in-depth study by Dr. Diana Pearce from the University of Washington, which provides bare-bones living costs based on local costs for each county. Necessities are covered: food, housing, child care, health care and transportation, but no money is allotted for savings, restaurant meals or entertainment.

To meet basic living expenses, a family of three with one adult and two children needs $36,540 in Atlantic County and $54,432 in Somerset County. A two-working-parent family with a preschooler and a school-age child ranges from $41,350 in Atlantic County to $62,481 in Somerset County.

Realistically, to make it possible for low-income families to meet their actual expenses, we must ensure that food stamps, school breakfasts and school lunches are accessible to those eligible. The innovative N.J. State Rental Assistance program must be expanded to include more low-income families to make rents affordable. Adequate child care programs are vital so that workers are able show up for work reliably. Family care must be made available to all those who need it. These programs are vital to individuals and families living with an income-expense gap, so both they and the communities they live and work in can thrive.

Anjali Srivastava

director

Poverty Research Institute Legal Services of New Jersey

participant

Anti-Poverty Network

Edison

Utilities official discusses state of NJ’s power supply

Climatology experts tell us that the summer of 2005 was the hottest on record for New Jersey. The summer heat translated into record demand for energy. Yet despite the incredible demand placed on our state’s power delivery system this summer, failures were few and far between. Compare this to 2003, when more than 40,000 Shore area customers lost power during the July Fourth weekend and a month later when one of the largest blackouts in American history affected 50 million people throughout the Northeast. So why did we not experience the same problems encountered two summers ago? The answer can be broken down into three main reasons: infrastructure, supply management, and emergency preparedness.

Infrastructure

For Shore area customers alone, JCP&L has spent $89 million to improve reliability as a result of the outages that occurred two summers ago to areas like Brick, Lavallette and Seaside Heights. Part of that work is the completion of an additional power line to increase capacity, as well as new transmission cable crossing the Barnegat Bridge and strengthened transmission substations to serve the peninsula. PSE&G, the state’s largest power provider, has made $550 million in infrastructure improvements across its service area in just the last year. This includes using the latest infrared sensing equipment to inspect thousands of miles of critical distribution lines and deploying helicopters to comb some 1,200 miles of overhead transmission cables for problems. Additionally, enhancements have been made to delivery systems statewide providing increased capacity where demand is growing, while accelerating proven protective practices such as vegetation management and tree trimming around power lines, and animal-proofing of substations.

Supply management

As peak energy demands surfaced this summer, state utilities worked to establish new benchmarks to coordinate power availability through a cooperative agreement with more than a dozen states in the region. This meant that if power demand began to peak in one area of the state, resources from another area could be quickly tapped to accommodate that need and avoid any interruptions in service. Through this electrical consortium, utilities were able to monitor the state’s energy transmissions 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This kept our electricity supply and demand needs in balance so that power producers knew how much energy should be generated and could adjust import and export transactions accordingly.

Emergency preparedness

Improvements have been made over the last several years to provide for redundancies and automatic switching mechanisms should problems surface. As we have learned from the 2003 blackout that spanned the Northeast, even with an adequate power supply and basic infrastructure needs met within the state, cascading outages — particularly from outside our borders — still threaten our electrical system. Since that time, the state’s electric delivery systems have been upgraded to ensure that the system can be quickly restored should failures occur from unavoidable causes — whether natural or man-made. New Jersey’s electrical grid now has improved abilities to quickly isolate a faulty situation before it becomes a devastating catastrophe, capable of bringing an entire system down. If unavoidable outages do occur, they can be minimized to reduce the overall number of customers affected and the time needed to restore service.

For the last two years, New Jersey’s utility companies have worked closely with the Board of Public Utilities, as well as the emergency management community, to ensure that power stayed on this summer. Next summer will be no different. The outages of 2003 were pointed lessons in how delicate and intricately interwoven our electric system became. New Jersey’s electric utilities will continue to build on these lessons with an enduring commitment to implement new practices and use new technologies that provide consistent power even during the highest levels of demand.

Fred Abbate

executive director

New Jersey Utilities Association