Please help the Ralph Nelson Family

This is hard to write.

It’s 4:30 AM on a Sunday morning and I cannot sleep. Last night, Saturday night, we had friends from Westchester over. We were eating take-out Indian food, and were sharing stories about our recent vacation trips. We had gone to Japan; they had gone to the Grand Canyon. My daughter told me that my cell phone was ringing. I ran to the back of the house to answer it. I had to sit down when I heard this story.

“Mr. Sherman, it’s Ralph Nelson. I don’t know if you know, but I was burned out of my building on Tuesday. My family and I escaped with just the clothes on our backs and nothing else. Whatever we have smells of smoke. We are in a public shelter in Harlem. We are sleeping two to bed because it is cold here and the Red Cross blankets and sheets are thin. I’ve never asked you for anything Mr. Sherman, but I’m asking you for help. We lost everything. We have nothing. I thought you knew. That someone at school told you or that you saw on the TV about the large fire in the Bronx. The fire came up the dumbwaiter shaft and consumed the whole building. We have nothing. We need everything, sheets, towels, undergarments, shoes, winter jackets, furniture, kitchen stuff, everything.”

“Oh, shoot, I said, I’m so sorry. Thanks for reaching out. Yes, of course, I’ll be happy to help. Give me the address of the shelter and I’ll be there tomorrow to assist you and your family.”

I put down the phone and told me my wife that tomorrow I would be taking Ralph and his family to Costco, and was thinking of spending around a thousand dollars to help them buy new clothes. “You can’t do this alone, said my wife. “Set up a GoFundMe account to help them”, hence this campaign.

So here goes. Ralph Nelson is the salt of the earth. I have known him for ten years. He is the custodial cleaner in my school where I’m the principal. He’s been working in the same school for 39 years. Everyone knows him. He was a paraprofessional first and later became a custodial cleaner. In the 1970’s when my father worked in the building, he and Ralph would jog around Kissena Park, and they both enjoyed riding bicycles. My father retired a long time ago, but Ralph just soldiers on, working quietly by himself each day, pushing a garbage can.

Ralph works the late shift. He starts around 3:30 PM as the clubs at school are winding down. He is responsible for cleaning the school. He sweeps the daily debris: the pencils, papers, pens, scraps of paper, markers, chalk, hair, dust and other detritus out the door of each classroom into a neat pile in the hallway, and then he sweeps the piles together into a dustpan and then into one of the double garbage cans on his cart. He scrapes gum from floors, tables, and chairs. He removes graffiti. He picks up pieces of stray toilet paper and paper towels that have fallen onto floors of the bathrooms. He mops the bathroom floors of the urine that has somehow missed the toilet, as well as the feces that have splashed onto and out of the toilets. He washes the sinks and the mirrors. He makes the school look shiny and clean, and then the next day, everyone dirties it up again…for him to clean again…over and over, for most of the past 39 years that he has been working in the school building.

He finishes work at midnight and then takes public transportation, meaning two buses, to get home.

Ralph has aged. He wears his hair in corn rows or in an afro, and it is grey now. He is almost sixty. He shuffles from place to place, his thin body on an angle from past surgeries on each of feet that didn’t heal quite properly. He is a frugal man and wears discarded student gym uniforms to work. He is skinny as a stick, with so much extra on his belt that I swear he wears it on the last hole, (the opposite last hole of my belt!), and that he must have a size 30 waist, if that. Yet Ralph never complains. He is always smiling, friendly. There isn’t a bad bone in his body. He is a genuine guy.

Let me tell you something special about Ralph. He is humble and respectful. He calls me every year like clockwork at 10 AM on Father’s Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. The conversation always goes like this, “Hi Mr. Sherman, it’s Ralph Nelson. Happy _____ Day! I just wanted to call you to wish you and your family well on this special day. How is everyone? How is your family? How are your father and mother? Please give them my regards. Let me put my wife on the phone to say hello. Mr. Sherman, how are you? I’m making jerk chicken, curry goat, and when you coming over to have some? How’s your family, Mr. Sherman? Everyone’s okay? Good to hear. You take care now, Mr. Sherman.”

For Ralph Nelson and his family, being suddenly homeless is unsettling. Burned out of their apartment by a three-alarm pre-dawn fire, they have only what they could carry, and everything smells of smoke. The Red Cross placed them into a shelter run by a reputable organization, West Harlem Group Assistance, Inc., which has placed them into a temporary apartment in one of their buildings on Convent Avenue up in Harlem. All the people in this shelter have one thing in common: they all have children who are minors. This means that families are kept together and they are not mixed in with homeless who have just been released from incarceration or mental health institutions. Still, it is a shelter and there are lots of rules, like “no visitors” so I should understand if they don’t invite me up.

Born and raised in New York City, I have traveled the world. I have been lucky enough to live in Israel, China, and Japan. I am sending this to you because I know you are out there somewhere. I know you are a good person who wants to help others, even if you don’t know the person. Please help me to help Ralph Nelson and his family to get out of the homeless shelter, into a home, and to get back on their feet again. I am so very thankful to you for your assistance.

Here are links to the news stories about the three-alarm fire which started this whole tragedy:
• http://pix11.com/2016/01/12/fire-ripping-through-bronx-apartment-grows-to-third-alarm/
• http://abc7ny.com/news/3-alarm-fire-burns-through-apartment-building-in-the-bronx/1155751/
• http://bronx.news12.com/news/firefighters-battle-3-alarm-fire-on-grand-concourse-1.11316657
• https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160112/fordham/fire-tears-through-bronx-apartment-building-officials-say

I'm the principal of an inner city public high school in New York City. Ralph is the custodial cleaner. I'd like to raise the funds by the end of January so that Ralph and his family can find a decent apartment to live in, and have enough money for furniture, clothing, and household goods. Please send this out by Facebook, email, and other social media. Please share this with your church, synagogue, or mosque. Please tell your co-workers. Let's make this go viral. I'll be so thankful to you if we can help the Ralph Nelson Family together.

Below are some photos of Ralph and his family. I’m the tall guy in some of the photos. I took the family shopping today at Costco and Old Navy for underwear, socks, shoes, and basic foodstuff. I picked up the tab. With your help, he'll be able to pick up the tab again. Thank you.