Moving on...   As LDRNY prepares to end programming, Director Mikki Baloy shares her thoughts

Moving on.  It’s a phrase I’ve heard countless times in my tenure at LDRNY, as other agencies “sunsetted,” or closed their doors; as colleagues changed jobs; as the media and public questioned how survivors and victims’ loved ones should be behaving.  

LDRNY will be ceasing operations this fall.  Our “moving on” is a natural outcome of our particular process.  Having been founded specifically to respond to 9/11, our generous endowment has been well-spent in doing just that. *  While many agencies closed shortly after the disaster, LDRNY was committed to being a presence in the community for as long as possible.  In this respect, our mission has been accomplished.   The Unmet Needs Roundtable, Faithful Response, Lutheran Counseling Center, Project LIFE, 9/11 Immigration legal services, domestic violence awareness, food pantries and hunger prevention, respite for caregivers… the list of programs we have created and supported is enormous for an agency that, at its largest, boasted three employees.

LDRNY has been deeply invested in the healing process so necessary for New York City after 9/11.  Our programs and services to those in need have created real change in people’s lives, in both tangible and intangible ways.  I have been blessed with the opportunity to work here, for I have been both witness and collaborator in this healing.  

Of course, I would be remiss to not include my own healing, since I have also survived the turmoil, trauma, and burnout so common to those who were present during the disaster and its aftermath.  In assisting others, I have been allowed- and taught- to recover.  I am grateful to every colleague and every client for sharing their stories, resilience, and expertise with me.  I will be in our 22 Cortlandt Street office until November.  I am not sure what career path will open up to me at that time, but I am certain that every lesson learned at LDRNY will serve me well in both my professional and personal life.

There are precious few grants available for 9/11-related work, and the need for federal intervention has never been greater.  Small grass-roots agencies like ours, no matter how efficient, simply cannot meet the staggering unmet needs of survivors and recovery workers who are now sick or injured.  I urge you to keep yourselves informed about this issue, and to write to your elected officials in support of comprehensive 9/11 healthcare legislation.  If you would like to donate directly to an agency that offers direct services to clients, please consider Faithful Response, a faith-based and trauma-specific mental health program founded by the American Red Cross, LDRNY, and Catholic Charities.

There is no prescribed formula for how one should heal or how long it should take.  It simply happens in its own time, with whatever resources and insights are available.   I’ve heard many people say that we should all have moved on, gotten over 9/11.  I am glad that they seem to have done so themselves, but they fail to understand the depth and complexity of issues that emerged with the disaster. For many people, it simply isn’t possible to move on yet, and it may never be. 

I have been questioning the form that moving on will take in my own life.   I am confident that whatever comes next professionally will be exciting and fulfilling.  But on a deeply personal level, it’s a much harder question to answer.  Here at the Comfort and Renew Center, I have looked down, from 20 stories above the site, and watched the early stages of construction for almost five years.  When I leave this office in November, the site will look much the same as it does now, and my final memory of my time at LDRNY will include a huge hole in the ground.   To me, it represents all that is still undone, unfinished, and unresolved about this horrible tragedy.  I look forward to the day I can walk across the newly constructed plaza at Ground Zero from Church Street to West Street, the day I can pray at the memorial, and then look up at where I used to work.  Then, maybe, I will truly move on.

* You can request a copy of our five-year retrospective report by sending an email to mikki@ldrny.org or calling the office.