Businesses Aid in Joplin Aftermath

James Smith is ready, willing and able to lend.

That is the slogan accompanying Smith’s picture on a billboard in Bentonville near the intersection of South Walton Boulevard and Southwest Regional Airport Boulevard, touting the local presence of Great Southern Bank.

The Springfield, Mo.-based company opened a loan production office in Northwest Arkansas in 2003, and in May 2010 opened a full-service branch at the former location of a Chambers Bank in the Pinnacle Hills area of Rogers.

Smith is the bank’s Northwest Arkansas market manager.

Last month, that company tagline of lending took on a new meaning for Smith in the wake of tragedy.

Late in the afternoon on Sunday, May 22, a tornado swept through a densely populated portion of Joplin, Mo., leaving behind a six-mile path of catastrophic loss. The EF-5 twister killed 142 people – the deadliest tornado in U.S. history – and damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses.

Smith lives in Neosho, where he graduated from high school, and decided to make the short drive north to Joplin the following morning to assess any damage at Great Southern’s two branches in the city. He wasn’t prepared for what he discovered.

“I got there before checkpoints and restricted access,” he said. “And the city was still smoldering. It was just an assault on my eyeballs. I could not believe what I was seeing. I had the chance to drive in the area that they’re sort of calling ‘ground zero’ and it was … it was terrible. The sheer volume of destruction … I just couldn’t take it in.”

As the feeling of helplessness washed over him, Smith said he felt a duty to do something. Joplin, he said, was home. His mother, brother, in-laws and several close friends all live there. So did Smith while attending Neosho High.

“I only lived in Joplin proper for a few years,” he said. “But it’s always been the town next door where you go to the mall, to meet friends, to go to the movies. Growing up, you just always went to Joplin.

“My network of family and friends was OK, but I wanted to help.”

Others in Northwest Arkansas have responded in similar fashion.

Because of the proximity to Joplin and severity of the event, the outpouring of support for the Missouri town has been overwhelming.

Donations of time, money and materials have poured in from businesses large and small throughout Northwest Arkansas.

“As gruesome as the destruction is, it’s almost as equally impressive how our neighbors have come together to help,” Smith said. “I guess it puts a lot of faith in humanity seeing everyone come together.”

 

An Easy Way to Contribute

Smith spent Monday, May 23, attending primarily to bank business in Joplin. Of Great Southern Bank’s two branches in the city, one was damaged, so Smith was the company’s man on the ground working with a regional leadership team to get the office operational as soon as possible.

“I could stand at the front door of that branch and see Academy [Sports and Outdoors] and Wal-Mart and all those buildings that got wiped out,” he said. “We had what amounted to some really hard wind damage. It had ripped out the ceiling area of the drive-thru; minor compared to everything else. The other branch was on the other side of town.”

At the end of the day, Smith told his wife and his boss in Springfield that he was going to report back to Joplin on Tuesday morning to further assist in relief efforts.

He was one of the first to arrive at the Americorps Volunteer Center at Missouri Southern and “within five minutes I had a job,” he said. “They put an orange vest on me and I basically directed foot traffic of volunteers coming in. People were coming in with chainsaws, others in shorts and flip-flops.”

Smith returned to work the following day determined to aid in the relief efforts.

“Coming in that day, I decided to use the connections that I have here to try and get some help up there,” he said. “I thought if I was coming to Northwest Arkansas every day and I have a truck, why wouldn’t I have it full going back to Joplin every day in the evening? It just made sense to me.”

That evening, Smith’s Chevrolet Silverado “couldn’t fit another thing in it,” he said. The first shipment was a donation from Snyder’s-Lance – 7,200 packages of snack crackers and cookies.

“You wouldn’t believe how much a box of snack crackers weighs,” Smith said.

He topped off the truckload of supplies with assorted donations from local businesses made to the Bentonville/Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce. It’s been Smith’s last stop before heading home each day, transporting various items to the College Heights Christian School, one of three distribution points in Joplin set up to accept donations.

“I’ll keep it up as long as people have stuff to send,” Smith said. “For me, it’s an easy way for me to contribute. It’s just a fragment [of the relief effort], but everywhere you look and talk to people, people are doing something.”

 

Within the Orbit of NWA

Gordon Goss said the decision for his company to aid in the relief efforts was an easy one.

“Anybody living in Northwest Arkansas that night [May 22], we were all taking shelter,” he said. “Everybody had their worst fears and fortunately we were spared, but Joplin is so close to our community. We’ve traveled there for our kids’ sporting events. It’s a city that is within the orbit of Northwest Arkansas.”

Goss is a corporate vice president at Kruger Products USA Inc. in Bentonville, a Wal-Mart supplier and a leading manufacturer and distributor of towel and tissue products.

From its plant in Memphis, Kruger donated 80,000 rolls of bath tissue and paper towels. The donation, which filled an 18-wheeler truck trailer, was made through Mercy Medical Center in Rogers.

“We had that rolling Monday afternoon and it arrived [in Joplin] Tuesday morning,” Goss said. “There’s been so much outreach here from the supplier community. When we saw those two products on the request list, it was a pretty easy decision to do what we could do.”

Mercy collected an estimated 66,000 pounds of supplies, which included “just about anything from a Walmart shelf,” said Clark Ellison, the hospital’s vice president of philanthropy.

The hospital filled two semi-trucks and two smaller trucks in a three-day period.

“We live in a very blessed community full of generous individuals and corporations,” Ellison said.

 

Coordinated Efforts

Headquartered in Sheboygan, Wis., Rockline Industries is a worldwide manufacturer of private label and contract manufactured wet wipes.

The company has six manufacturing facilities on three continents, including two in Springdale and Booneville.

David Hastings, warehouse manager of the Springdale plant, coordinated efforts internally and with J.B. Hunt to donate 30,000 packages of baby wipes to the relief effort.

“My team was hearing that J.B. Hunt was offering free transportation for donations,” said Joel Slank, operations manager at Rockline in Springdale. “It seemed like a nice way to be able to partner with J.B. Hunt. We would have donated anyway, but this made it happen a little faster.”

The company’s donation filled a 53-foot trailer. The plant in Springdale produces more than 10 million packages per month, and the 30,000 that were donated were on hand and “would have been earmarked for other local donations or employee sales projects,” Slank said.

 

Continue To Lend A Hand

Kyle Jack is the owner of Rapid Prototypes in Bentonville and he said the tragedy in Joplin hit especially close to home.

Jack attended Missouri Southern and he met his wife, Kelly, in Joplin. The two have family who live in and around Joplin and Jack’s sister-in-law was working in the emergency room of St. John’s Regional Medical Center when the tornado roared through, rendering the facility non-operational.

“She had some bumps and bruises,” Jack said of his wife’s sister, “but nothing major. We praise God that none of our family was seriously injured, but it did hit very close to home.”

Working together with the city of Bethel Heights – where Jack’s father, Fred, is a former mayor – Rapid Prototypes went to work Monday morning organizing its relief effort. The company offered use of its truck to transport donations.

“We told our employees to do what you feel led to do,” Jack said. “We got our neighbors involved, cleaned out our garage, gathered what we could and threw it on the truck. Word really started to spread.”

Donations gathered through the efforts of Rapid Prototypes and the city of Bethel Heights resulted in two truckloads.

Smith said he hopes as the weeks and months pass, the business community in Northwest Arkansas will continue to lend Joplin a hand on the long road to recovery.

“What I’m afraid of is my biggest fear,” Smith said. “When the next headline comes or the next tornado hits … six weeks passes and these [volunteers] are going to be gone.”