[NJARC] Hurricane relief

[David R Sica]

Fellow Club Members,
 
This email list is a hobby forum and may not be the most appropriate
venue for this message, but I will take that chance. As many of you know,
I run a small video production business. One of my favorite quotes is "If
the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a
nail." However, I've found the video camera can serve as an awfully
powerful hammer. 

--Dave Sica
 
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Saturday, September 03, 2005
 
An open letter to my friends and clients:
 
I've been watching the news all week, as I'm sure you have too,
frequently with tears in my eyes, trying to take in the incomprehensible
degree of human suffering on the gulf coast of our country and feeling
pretty helpless. 9/11 impacted me so profoundly that I never expected to
see anything on that scale again in my life, and yet this, although
different, is -- almost unbelievably -- even bigger.
 
A week has gone by, and yet the situation still remains desperate for the
untold numbers of us unlucky enough to be trapped there. A week has gone
by, but it's hardly too late to do something. I am shocked and a little
bit angry at some of the things I've seen: people still waiting to be
rescued from rooftops. Even more incredibly, many of the "lucky" ones who
have been airlifted to safety are still without access to even water or
basic sanitation. And I've been sitting here with plenty of food and
water, wondering what to do. After my meager initial personal response to
this tragedy, I decided that I had to try to do something more. 
 
So I decided to run, if you will, a sort of a high-tech "lemonade stand".
(One uses the resources that are available, and my resources are all
concentrated in our media production capabilities.) 
 
I'm reaching out to everyone I know to let you know that this week I will
donate 100% of the profits from any orders for any production work
received by my company.
 
This is not a sales pitch and I hope it will not be perceived as any sort
of publicity stunt. It is not. I don't personally know a soul in
Mississippi or Louisiana, but I do feel a need to do something more than
sit here and wring my hands. And this idea, for better or for worse, is
what I came up.  
 
It doesn't have to be anything big. In fact, to be candid I really
couldn't afford to work for free on a large-scale project. But please
consider if you might have a need for any small things: Do you need any
DVDs made or tapes copied? Any web video, MPEG files or Video CDs? Are
there any small editing jobs you have been putting off? However much or
little we are able to raise this way, it will help, and I will get it to
an appropriate relief agency where it can put it to use immediately. 
 
Again, I am not looking to make any money for myself from this. I'm just
hoping that there may be some little things that you've been "thinking of
doing" at your place of business that just haven't been a high enough
priority to actually get in the works yet. This would be a great time,
right now, to dig them out to help mitigate the heartbreaking suffering
that people are being forced to endure.
 
If you disagree with me that this is an appropriate venue for this type
of appeal, please accept my sincere apologies. If you agree with my idea,
please consider the possibility of instituting some sort of similar
offering from within your own organization.
 
In closing, I'd like to offer a quote attributed to Teddy Roosevelt:
In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing.
The worst thing you can do is nothing.
 
David Sica
President, Sica Productions
Tel: 732-382-0618
Email: davesica at juno.com
 
For further information and updates please go to
http://www.sicaproductions.com/hurricane
 



























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