‘Be a helper’ Community comes out to City Foundry to help tornado victims

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - Recovery from the Friday tornado is still a long way off, and on Wednesday at the City Foundry, the community came out to see how they could help.

“If you’ve seen it, that’s all it takes, these people have nothing,” said Olivia Rebeck.

Rebeck has gone to North City nearly every day since the Friday tornado.

“Clearing bricks, rubble, wherever we can be,” said Rebeck.

On Wednesday, she took a bit of a break and briefly went to Tornado Relief Night at the City Foundry with a message for those looking to help.

“If there are young able-bodied men and women who can come out and help, we are tired, we’ve been doing this since Saturday,” said Rebeck. “Be a helper. Go out and do something.”

The event brought plenty of people outside the Foundry.

“When our community was impacted the way it was last week, we wanted to bring everybody together,” said Will Smith.

Smith, president of New and Found, which manages the City Foundry, originally planned a live art market Wednesday evening. Then the storm came — and they pivoted.

“That’s not the most important thing right now. And it’s not that we can’t do that but what we need to do is we need to come together and those that have been impacted,” said Smith.

The event was awash with people coming to tornado victims.

“This is my hometown,” said Ariel Swoboda.

We found Swoboda in line looking to purchase raffle tickets.

“Hoping to get involved in helping any way I can,” said Swoboda.

Outside of the raffle, cars were consistently lining up at the drop-off site, giving canned chicken, diapers, baby formula and everything else victims may need.

“Those supplies have just been piling up all day,” said Smith.

While this was an outside event, some of the restaurants inside the City Foundry were donating their proceeds to the tornado relief victims. That includes the Kalbi Taco Shack.

A part of the original event still lingered as artists like Linette painted in real time — she grapples with the twister that shook her community.

“I feel mostly shocked,” said Linette. “I still feel like it’s hard to believe.”

Processing what happened, one paint stroke at a time.

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