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
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