Big Heart for a Little Girl with a Mission

April 27, 2009

On Friday, April 3, 2009, a shooter walked into the American Civic Association and open fired- killing 13 victims taking an English class, before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life. It is obvious that everyone in Binghamton and even surrounding areas, along with other countries are mourning after the shooting that took place on that rainy Friday morning.

However, while some kids are not affected by this tragedy or some are more consumed with question on why, 10-year-old, Emily Miller of Cornell Ave in Binghamton was springing into action to put together a street-garage sale/fundraiser; the fundraiser to help the victim’s families.

Emily is just like any other 10-year-old girl. She attends school during the weekdays and church on the weekend. She likes to play with her friends and ride bikes as well. You see, Emily is not any different from anyone else who is her age, unless of course, you take the fact that she has a big heart for a little girl into consideration.

“I wanted to help the families. I am happy to do this, but I don’t want to be ‘proud.’ I am not doing this for me to be noticed,” Emily said.

And as much as everyone knows that, they still cannot help but throw her some words of their happiness. “This is a wonderful, self-less act that I cannot believe you have come up with,” said Debra Vincent of Binghamton.

Self-less is what made Emily be noticed, and not just by garage-salers and neighbors. Channel 12 WBNG TV stopped by on Friday April 17^th with their camera equipment and interviewed her for their 5:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. news that night. “They just stopped here and took some pictures and asked me some questions.” Emily said of the reporters.

“Remember we went to the funeral last week? This is for that,” A lady explained to her young daughter, speaking of Parveen Ali who was one of the victim’s on April 3 and whom she knew.

In the two days that Emily Miller and her family had set up their garage sale, Emily made $538.00 in just donations with help from a couple of people on the street with canisters as well. The money will be donated to the victim’s families this week which happens to be National Crime Victims Rights Week.

We’re Going for a Walk

This is a children's book I wrote.

We’re going for a walk; we’re going for a walk.

Walk, walk, walk and talk, talk, talk, and we’re going for a walk.

Walk around what do you see, sitting over there in that big old oak tree?

It’s an owl. He says “Woo woo.”

“Who? It’s me…”

Woo. “Me you silly.”

Walk around what is that sound, is there something over there on the ground?

It’s a squirrel. They gather nuts for the long winter ahead.

Help pick them up one by one,

Gather all the nuts until they are all gone.

Walk around what do you see, moving around in that tree?

Tweet tweet tweet, it’s a robin in her nest.

They sing all spring can we sing too?

“La la la la la.”

Walk around what is that, circling around… is it a cat?

Let’s walk over near the trunk,

Mommy grabs my hand and says, “No honey, it’s a skunk!”

Quickly run back into the house; let’s get out of here,

We will be safer by the window, my dear.

Here we sit watching that big old tree,

It was a nice adventure outside,

But I’d rather be in baking cookies with mommy.

An All-American Kind of Place

April 10, 2009

Sitting in a little bit from the road there is a long narrow building called “Danny’s Diner.” Run almost completely by women, the diner is well-known for its classic diner breakfasts still served on old-fashion hard plastic plates. Lately, the parking lot (which is bigger than the diner itself) has been pack every morning. And when one car pulls out, one is waiting to get in.

Established in 1970, this place that almost looks like an old train car is still holding strong here on Main St. in Binghamton, N.Y. Danny's Diner is what every Diner Lover could want. It harkens back to another era where decent homemade roadside food was the norm. But who can go wrong with a standard all-American delicious breakfast in a non-chain diner? It is all there with really good prices! There is French toast, eggs, pancakes, bacon, omelets and sausage all reasonable priced.

“It took me awhile to check this place out, shame on me. I am not big on diners - that is changing thanks to Danny's Diner,” A diner called, Mike said.

And I too must admit, I have drove past this place millions of times- as you can imagine, and never stopped in. I would just tell myself, “I really need to go there sometime.”

So for the five dollars in my pocket and the hunger starting to growl in my belly, I went in for a breakfast that cost just about five dollars exactly.

When a Community Comes Together

April 9, 2009

It was 5 p.m. on Sunday, two days after the shooting on Front Street at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, and there I was, just two blocks from the site. I was there to walk with a group to lay flowers in memory of those killed.

I sat in my seat waiting for instructions as to how my night would go. There were four things I was told I could choose from to help with that night in preparation for the vigil that was taking place on the following Wednesday night. I could either do some housekeeping — something I dreaded and did everyday anyway, so that was out of the question. I wanted to be involved in the community part of the evening too so I wasn’t planning on running a vacuum inside. I could greet and invite them to join in — this was where I would walk the downtown streets of Binghamton and either talk to people on the street or go door-to-door handing out little cards that tell the who, what, when, where and why information of the vigil. I could go on coffee runs — this tiny token of appreciation was where we all headed to the City Light Café on Washington Street and received numerous trays of coffee to take to the first responders and everyone who helped out on site at the ACA on Friday during the massacre. This included Wilson Hospital , Lourdes Hospital , the Broome County Sheriffs Office, the Binghamton , Endicott, Vestal, Johnson City , and Endwell Police and Fire personnel and the Endicott Bomb Squad. Or I could offer prayer — whomever felt like they could not contribute their time in any of the first three areas, were welcome to sit in the sanctuary and just pray until they couldn’t pray anymore for the victim, survivors, family, friends and all the people involved.

I weighed my options and it didn’t take me long to realize that coffee duty was my calling. But before I was to gather my troops (my cousin Sydney, Aunt Tammy, Sydney’s friend Elizabeth, my 2-year-old daughter, Tarrah, and my mom), we still all were getting ready to walk to the ACA to lay our flowers at the make-shift memorial. I, along with my mom were chosen to help handout the flowers so that every family had something to carry in the march. After that duty was fulfilled, all of the 200 or so people who showed up to volunteer made their way to Front Street.

I remember walking there, watching the traffic look at this big group holding flowers. None of us had any emotion yet; no tears were flowing until we reached the site. There, is where we were met by reporters and photographers. There were people there already. I assume they were Chinese and knew the victims in some sort. They were sobbing and chanting something in Chinese. We all stood as we prayed and then laid the flowers around the American Civic Association sign, and headed back to execute one the four options that we chose.

My group gathered our four trays of coffee (16 cups all together and two trays of creamer, sugar and stirring straws) and then headed to our location: Lourdes Hospital Emergency Room. I could hear myself rambling in my mind what I would say to the doctors and nurses. “Hi, my name is Ashley and I am from First…” “Hi, I am from First Assembly of God and we wanted to offer you these coffees and say thank you for everything you did to help out on Friday.” I didn’t have much time to figure it out; I had been walking to the doors at that very moment when I chose the last one tat played in my head.

When I walked out empty handed, I was happy. That joy of doing some good to help my community in this time if tragedy was amazing. Hearing from the employees of Lourdes that they didn’t expect that and that they were so happy to receive the coffee made me feel great that I did that.

© Copyright 2009 Ashley B. Vincent