Benicia hardware store owner raises $33K for Superstorm Sandy victims; volunteer describes helping displaced East Coast families

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

When Gene Pedrotti turned his Ace Hardware Store’s cash registers into fundraising machines for the American Red Cross, he said he would match customers’ donations until $10,000 was raised to help the victims of Superstorm Sandy.

When the donations exceeded that initial goal, he decided to keep collecting through Thanksgiving.

And when he wrapped up the fundraiser and matched the funds, Pedrotti had $33,214 to give the Red Cross to help storm victims.

“Benicia and our surrounding community is a small town with a big heart,” Pedrotti said Thursday, when he and members of the American Red Cross gathered for the check presentation.

Among the Red Cross members who visited his store Thursday to pick up the oversized check was John Williams, a member of the American Red Cross Disaster Services.

Last month, Williams spent several days serving meals to residents of Long Island, N.Y., and other areas devastated by Sandy, which became a super storm before striking the Northeast.

Williams, a Benicia resident, and Bob Hewitt, of Vacaville, were deployed as a team that left Fairfield on Nov. 4, driving an emergency response vehicle (ERV) to New York.

Their trip, including their time of service, was 14 days.

They joined other volunteers who brought ERVs from every part of the country, Williams said.

The two used the vehicle to deliver hot meals to those who had no way to prepare meals themselves.

Williams and Hewitt would drive to one of the sites where the Southern Baptist Convention had set up tractor-trailer rigs that are the church organization’s mobile kitchens.

The Baptists cooked up hearty meals of beef stew, ham or chicken, with hot vegetables and bread, Williams said.

“These meals would stick to your ribs,” he said.

The Solano County ERV would be loaded in two minutes or less with 30,000 hot meals packed in well-insulated containers. Then the men would be given directions for their deliveries.

No time was wasted, Williams said.

“They wanted those meals delivered hot,” he said.

The people they met had no way to cook any food. Power hadn’t been restored, despite the multiple utility crews dispatched to the area, he said.

Sometimes the Solano County men would travel to a community center or other building where hungry storm survivors would be waiting.

Other times, they would drive slowly down specified streets, announcing by loudspeaker that those needing a hot meal were about to be fed.

Those included the contractors who were trying to get homes operational, Williams said. That kept the workers onsite instead of traveling to find meals elsewhere.

Williams and Hewitt stayed in a college gymnasium, which they shared with an average of 320 people each night. At night, they slept on cots. They were in bed early; their days started at 6 a.m.

As the two Solano County volunteers delivered their daily allotment of 30,000 meals, they witnessed the results of Sandy’s destruction.

“The people suffered,” Williams said. “We were in the damaged areas.” Boats were washed inland. One was several blocks in from the water, in the middle of the street, he said.

“I saw people’s homes that had been flooded,” he said. The people who returned to those homes then had to deal with the waterlogged contents, he said.

Most of the residents had to drag ruined property out to the curb, he said. Others filled dumping bins past capacity.

As he and Hewitt drove past, Williams was touched to see one house with a family photograph on its porch. It was one of the few items the family was able to salvage.

But that’s not all the two Solano County men noticed.

“The spirit of the people,” Williams said. “The New York spirit is amazing. They’re strong and resilient, gracious and appreciative.”

Pedrotti’s fundraising is part of his family’s tradition. Combined with the money he raised and matched for the Red Cross’s effort after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, the total exceeds $100,000.

The storm that was a combination of Hurricane Sandy and other fronts reached New York and New Jersey Oct. 29, though by then the hurricane alone left a path of death and destruction from the Caribbean up the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

Debbie Yee, disaster services manager for Solano County, said the area still needs help.

“This money will be used on food, shelter, clothing and mental health support,” she said. “There is a wide array of needs.”

Money that isn’t used right away will be reserved for long-term services, “when we see what the disaster victims need.”