Answering the Call

Vandalia Community High School teacher Amber Connor was watching television coverage of the tornado damage in Washington early last week when she realized that there was something familiar about the Peoria suburb.

“I said to my husband, ‘I think someone in your family lives in Washington,’” Connor said.
“He does have relatives who live there, and they lost their house,” she said.
So Connor “scoured the Internet” to find ways to help Washington residents, and how donated items could get transported to there.
She found the Washington IL Tornado Drop Site page on Facebook, and learned that a group from Hillsboro – where she and her husband live – was taking donations to Washington at the end of last week.
She put out a call for donations to students and faculty at VCHS and also to the community.
“We have a Facebook page and I’m one of the administrators, so I used that as a way to get people involved,” Connor said. “I asked the students and I asked the community to help.”
By noon on Friday, there were enough donations to fill two cars.
“All of this has come in in three days,” said Connor, who teaches general biology, honors biology, advanced biology, anatomy andt physiology at VCHS.
“Actually, it was very late on Tuesday when I posted it (on Facebook), so the students really didn’t know about it until Wednesday.
“So, all of these donations really came in over two days, so I think that was pretty amazing."

Vandalia Community High School students Gage Miles, left, and Anna Gerlach are shown with donations collected to help residents of Washington, Ill., recover from the Nov. 17 tornado. Miles and Gerlach were among the students donating to the cause.