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Days removed from chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, woman inspired 'forgotten' Sandy victimsBy Rob Spahr / NJ.com
HIGHLANDS – Rosemary Ryan’s bones were still aching from a grueling chemotherapy treatment she underwent for ovarian cancer, when she decided to take a walk down the hill from her Highland Avenue home and into town. Hurricane Sandy had decimated the working-class Bayshore borough two days earlier, but the 44-year-old single mother of two wanted to see the damage with her own eyes and, most importantly, to see if there was any way she could help.
“Up on the hill, our power was out, but we were fine. But when I got down there, it was just awful… you could see how high the water came up. It was just horrendous, it was like a wet ghost town,” Ryan said. “And there was the sense that we needed to do something to help our neighbors.” On the surface, Ryan said, Highlands did not have the kind of visual devastation that neighboring towns like Sea Bright and Union Beach had. But about 1,250 of the borough’s 1,500 homes, or more than 83 percent of the households, were damaged by the historic storm – many beyond repair. “We didn’t have the buildings dramatically torn in half or the beach clubs standing on their sides that the other towns had. We had 13 feet of water in our homes. We were ruined from the inside out. … Yet it’s almost like no one even knows we’re here,” Ryan said. “While other towns had the Army come in to help clear debris, we did it ourselves. And I support Governor Christie, but why did he go everywhere else but here? Is it because we don’t have the boardwalks or fancy homes? It’s almost like we are the town that everyone forgot.” And without enough money to repair their homes, Ryan said, many of these residents were relegated to living in deplorable conditions. “In a town like Highlands, with our income level, a lot of people have no place to go. So they’re sleeping on floors and in attics with no heat, because the entire first floor of their house is gone. And we had families who had children sleeping on mattresses they dried out after the storm, exposing them to untold toxins, because they had no other option,” said Highlands resident Rick Korn, a music, film and television producer who organized a free concert for the community in the days after the hurricane, featuring acts like Southside Johnny and Bobby, that raised $50,000 for storm victims. But while that total was impressive, it only scratched the surface of the kind of help Highlands needed. So along with several other community leaders, Korn and Ryan helped create the non-profit organization Hope for Highlands to help provide Hurricane Sandy victims with the help and materials they needs to rebuild their lives. To date, the group has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, including about $250,000 raised through The Robin Hood Foundation’s 12/12/12 concert, for that effort. And on Sunday evening, the group will be the beneficiary of another charity concert, this one at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank headlined by popular local cover band Brian Kirk & The Jirks. “A lot of people in town could use a night out,” Korn said. “And nothing’s better as a healer than music.” “Just look for the bald lady” And when doctors detected her cancer by chance – after she complained of back pain – she thought that God’s plan for her would be raising awareness about ovarian cancer. “Then Hurricane Sandy hit and I saw that people lost everything, including our fire fighters and police officers who live here and protect us. And I knew right away that this was God’s plan for me. This is what I was meant to do,” Ryan said. In the weeks immediately after Sandy hit, Ryan helped to coordinate large-scale donation drop offs and volunteer efforts. Like the night when 11 buses of donated goods were unexpectedly redirected from Toms River to Highlands and a police officer called on Ryan to find a place to put it all in less than 30 minutes. “I sent text messages to [two women] – who were very heavily involved in helping out and who were out to dinner with a group of people, because they had all been out volunteering all day – and told them I needed help. All I got back was ‘OK’ and within 20 minutes, there were 25 people out there in the pitch-black cold unloading the buses,” Ryan said. “So you see, it’s not just me. I didn’t unload those buses. I’m just one part of community filled with great people who are looking to help.” Rosemary Ryan, of Hope for Highlands, reads through a pile of papers listing the needs of Hurricane Sandy victims. “They would always say: ‘just look for the bald lady,’” a smiling Ryan said Thursday, with her hair now growing back. “My friends would joke that I made them feel guilty when they would see me out there with no hair and knowing that I was still recovering. But I would say: ‘Good! If it gets more help to these people, then I’m glad!’” “An icon for an underdog town” “My doctors hated that I was out there. Because at the time, there was all kinds of contamination, overflowed septic tanks and oil from boats all over the place,” she said. “But I told them that God didn’t help me survive cancer to send me out like that. So if I’m physically able to be out there, then that is where I’m going to be.” Korn said it is amazing to see Ryan at work. “I know chemo is supposed to zap your energy. But Ro is out there organizing hundreds and hundreds of people at once, and has the energy of five people,” he said. “And she does the dirty work. It’s much easier to talk to wealthy people and ask them for money. But to stand in front of person after person, whose lives have been devastated, handing them beds and having them cry in your arms is a different thing entirely. And she handles this so incredibly well.” Ryan said it is difficult to see people in such dire straits – unable to afford necessities like walls or flooring for their homes, or basic appliances and toiletries – but that trying to assist them has aided in her own recovery process. “For four months, I couldn’t do anything. I was stuck in my house, I was tired. This helped me feel like I was meant to do something. It’s stressful, but I think it gives my body reason to move. There’s no time to sit and wallow, and think ‘am I going to be OK?’” Ryan said. “And I’m lucky, I’ve never felt sorry for myself through all of this, because I knew it could always be worse. I can come home and lie in my bed with the heat on. But there are people I know who don’t have a house anymore.” And it is this spirit that Korn said makes Ryan an inspiration to a community desperately in need of one. “I’ve been fortunate enough to meet and work alongside a lot of incredible people in my life … from Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi, to Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton. But Ro is truly one of the most incredible people I have ever met,” Korn said. “Her energy is an inspiration. And she is an icon for what truly is an underdog town.” But as Ryan prays that her cancer does not grow back, she also prays that Highlands will be able to recover – something she said won’t be as easy here as it will be for other Jersey Shore towns. “We don’t have rollercoasters or beach clubs, so we’re not a tourist town. But we certainly have restaurants and businesses, and right now we don’t even know which ones will be coming back. And we have residents, and right now many of them are just trying to survive,” she said. “I’m afraid we could end up a ghost town or swallowed up by another town. It will take a lot of money and effort to prevent that. But we’re going to fight for it, because this is our home.” --Tickets for the Hope for Highlands benefit concert at Count Basie Theatre on Sunday, Jan. 20 are $35 and can be purchased at the Count Basie Theatre box office. Doors for the all-ages concert are scheduled to open at 6 p.m. |
