Reporter’s Notebook -- June Casagrande

In a single soiree, the Balboa Bay Club raised almost $60,000 for

victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Between sips of champagne and

samples of fine foods, guests at the Sept. 23 event found it in their

hearts and their wallets to give nearly $29,000, which was matched by

club owner Beverly Ray for the Firefighters 911 Fund.

They were not alone in their generosity. The Times reported that, just

nine days after the attacks, an estimated $360 million had been donated

for the victims’ families and survivors. This was before a telethon took

over the major networks to bring in about $150 million in pledges.

Around this time, my office phone rang. It was a member of a local

community group trying to get some publicity for a very worthy cause: a

fund-raiser for survivors of the attack. Then I got an e-mail -- a

heartwarming story about one resident who single-handedly raised $1,100

for the attacks. Around the same time I got another call: Hair West Salon

in Newport Beach was holding a cut-a-thon to raise money for the victims.

At a live comedy show I attended that week, performers were collecting

for the American Red Cross. At a Newport Beach City Council meeting, the

fire chief reported that community members are stopping firefighters in

the streets to hand them cash and checks.

I’m just one of six reporters in the news department here. My editors

have been hearing about this stuff six ways at once -- the outpouring of

support for everyone directly touched by the tragedy.

On any given day in the last few weeks, we have turned away at least

one or two stories that I would otherwise be thrilled to report. A new

sense of community has manifested itself in the form of a responsibility,

a desire to actively effect a solution. There have been so many requests

for news coverage for these charitable acts that my editors decided to

create a file where reporters could compile information about all these

fund-raisers.

The good news here is obvious. But the part of me that feels touched

by these unending displays of civic responsibility is also haunted by

uneasiness. It started when I did the math: If on Sept. 21 there was

already $510 million collected for the families of about 6,000 victims,

how much more is needed?

None of us can know the loss these people suffered. None of us can

imagine what they’re going through. But no amount of cash we hand them

will ever bring back their wives, their husbands and their children.

Many of the people who died in those attacks were breadwinners whose

families needed their support. But for many of them, money is not a

problem. The void they now know can’t be filled with all the dollar bills

in the world.

But we keep giving because we don’t know what else to do. It’s as if

money is the only salve we know and we keep applying it in hopes that it

will soothe the ache. It’s the same impulse that causes us, at the first

sniffle or sneeze, to pay for over-the-counter medicines, doctor visits

and prescriptions. We know there’s no cure for the common cold, but we’re

eager to use the only tool we know, money, to obtain something, anything,

that might make us feel a little better.

The men who hijacked those planes were desperate men. The people they

thought they were helping -- victimized Palestinians, Iraqis and others

-- are desperate people. The suffering the hijackers caused is a

desperate suffering.

Desperation is as real an enemy as any we’ve ever known. It was an

enemy long before Sept. 11 and it will be an enemy long after.

All over the country and all over the world, needy, deserving people

continue to suffer. If only we could find a way to wield our desire to

give and our desire to help against the less-visible enemy of

desperation. If only we could prioritize our battle against this enemy

even when good times allow us to tune out the tragedies that don’t touch

us too closely. Maybe then we can achieve what hundreds of millions of

dollars directed to victims of the terrorist attacks are intended to do.

Maybe then we can defeat or at least diminish this subtle, ever-present

enemy.

* June Casagrande covers Newport Beach. She may be reached at (949)

574-4232 or by e-mail at o7 june.casagrande@latimes.comf7 .