Larry Granger arrived for his first day of work 32 minutes late but for good reason: He didn’t have shoes.
The 19-year-old Hurricane Katrina survivor made it to Denver from New Orleans on Sunday with the clothes on his back and a pair of suede sandals – not exactly the right footwear for unloading trucks.
It took Larry a while, sorting through donations piled in the gymnasium at the former Lowry Air Force Base on Tuesday before he found a pair of size 8 1/2 sneakers.
Then there was the traffic on Quebec Street. Larry gazed outside the passenger window in his new neighborhood as he inched along in a silver Chrysler mini-van driven by the Rev. James Coleman, a self-styled “street minister” whose license plate reads “MYGODIS.”
Larry, a lanky young man, stepped into the harsh fluorescent lights of the Stapleton Wal-Mart yet felt immediate comfort. Like all Wal-Marts, it’s virtually the same as the one he worked at in New Orleans.
Bob Rouse, the co-manager, shook Larry’s hand. Larry apologized to his new boss for being late.
“I’d say 4:32 is pretty good starting time considering you didn’t have shoes,” Rouse said.
Within 20 minutes, a clerk handed him a blue vest and a name tag. Two days after reaching Denver, Larry was employed. He was relieved.
“I was worried when I came out here. I wondered, ‘I don’t have a job. How am I going to live?’ I feel like I’m going to make it now.”
For someone who escaped a ravaging storm and lost everything – including his Ford F-150 truck, a new bedroom set and a $2,000 laptop – Larry is the picture of resiliency.
Like all the evacuees I met at Lowry , he had no complaints. “I’m just glad that I’m alive.”
I asked his fiancée, 19-year-old Richall Harris, if she needed or wanted anything in particular: clothes, books, music.
“Right now what I really need is a job,” she told me.
Her last one was manager-in-training at a New Orleans McDonald’s. For now, that might do. She might be out of harm’s way, but a managerial job at McDonald’s will barely lift her out of the poverty level. Her last job paid $5.50 an hour.
Larry’s new job at Wal-Mart pays better – $8.20 an hour – but it’s hardly a living wage. His supervisor, Oliver Hogue Sr., who is 49, said he’d rather see young men like Larry in college. That makes sense.
Once basic needs are met – medicine, food, clothing, homes, counseling and jobs – people wishing to donate should consider creating scholarship funds with stipends so that survivors such as Larry and Richall can concentrate on school and hope for a better life.
In the land of plenty, it makes people feel good to give. I met a handful of people at Lowry who stood there waiting to hand survivors cash or take them shopping. God bless them.
But a year or two from now, these victims will likely be forgotten. Money is pouring in from all over, and in the end if these victims remain poor we’ll be wondering: Where did those billions go?
The victims shouldn’t return to the just-getting-by life they once knew.
Larry and Richall came to Denver with very little: The clothes they wore when they left, $400 in savings and high school diplomas.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if during their next few years here they each earn bachelor’s degrees? That’s the kind of gift they would never have to fear losing. And those who created the scholarship funds could track their progress and see the miracles they helped create.
Call me an idealist, but that’s the kind of giving I’d like to see.
Cindy Rodriguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays in Scene. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
