Lending a Helping Hand

By Amy Wilentz.

Along stretches of blazing Arizona highway, refrigeration trucks carried water and ice for the hot, dehydrated troops. Evacuation helicopters and traveling medical centers stood at the ready. Hundreds of portable johns lined the byroads of the nation. "It's like planning the invasion of Normandy and Hannibal's crossing of the Alps on the same day," said Fred Droz, national director of Hands Across America, last Sunday's transcontinental charity event to raise money for America's hungry and homeless. "But at least Hannibal had elephants."

It was the latest, though certainly not the last, of the recent charity "megathons." Holding hands in a human chain that, in theory at least, was supposed to stretch from coast to coast, an eclectic, Fellini-like crowd was expected to sing America the Beautiful (key lyric: "From sea to shining sea") at 3 p.m. EDT, as well as the trendier anthems We Are the World and Hands Across America.

Among the hand holders: Jazzercise enthusiasts along Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, 500 Little Leaguers at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, scores of drum majorettes, dozens of disabled teenagers, gatherings of Hopi and Navajo tribesmen, a family of robots, some 20 parachutists, 600 guests celebrating an Italian wedding, a mile-long chain of blind people whose places were paid for by Singer Lionel Richie, a group of Hell's Angels, and hundreds of the destitute themselves. Along the way: concerts, frat parties, even a couple of weddings. Everyone wanted to get in on the act: a group of lifers at New Jersey State Prison in Rahway generously offered to line up across the Arizona desert--where less toughened participants feared to tread--but in the end their compassion only got them a spot in the handholding line across the prison yard.

When the drive for participants began in October, Hands Across America estimated that some 5.4 million people were needed for the linkup from Long Beach, Calif., to New York Harbor. But by last weekend only half that number had indicated an interest in lining up. Though each person was asked to contribute $10, by hand-holding time, line crashers were welcomed. Said California Line Chief Anne Jensen: "We're counting on everybody to bring a friend."

To bridge the human gaps, Hands organizers were expected to string miles of red and blue ribbons and rope. Cars and trucks were to be lined up trunk to hood. At week's end an armada of catamarans and sailboards hauled to the site by their owners made a surreal sea as they floated bow to stern on a hill west of Albuquerque. Hands Tennessee Organizer Tif Bingham said the event would be a huge success, no matter how broken the chain. After all, he pointed out, "the main purpose of Hands Across America is to raise money for the poor and hungry."

None of the megaevents of the past year and a half have reversed the virulent course of world hunger. Still, they have made some small inroads. Revenues from Live Aid, British Pop Star Bob Geldof's celebrity-stacked, bicontinental hunger concert, combined with the money raised by USA for Africa (which produced We Are the World and is the parent organization of Hands), total more than $140 million. Working with various relief groups, the Geldof organization has already shipped more than 100,000 metric tons of supplies to Africa. Proceeds from Hands, which optimistic organizers estimate could reach | about $50 million, will be distributed in a similar manner on the domestic front, with funds going to grass-roots food, housing and jobs organizations.

Hands Across America was but one of two megathons designed to open hearts and pocketbooks on Sunday. Four hours before Hands was to link up, Omar Khalifa, 29, a Sudanese runner, was to light a giant flame outside the United Nations in New York City and start up the grand finale of another Geldof megaevent, called Sport Aid and co-sponsored by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), to raise funds for Africa's hungry. In 266 cities from Ouagadougou to Bangkok and beyond, up to 20 million people were to participate in synchronized racing and sporting events.

In spite of the outpouring of interest in Sport Aid and Hands, some megathon organizers are worried about "compassion overload," a syndrome supposedly caused by the recent spate of celebrity-packed events. Says Peter J. Davies, president of InterAction, a coalition of 112 relief and development agencies: "One of our concerns now is donor fatigue. People believe they have done their thing."

One prominent celebrity who was invited but had not answered requests to participate in the festivities spoke out on the issue of hunger in America last week. Defending his plans for continued cutbacks in federal funding for social programs, Ronald Reagan said, "I don't believe that there is anyone going hungry in America by reason of denial or lack of ability to feed them; it is by people not knowing where or how to get this help."

Given the timing, Reagan's remarks on hunger sounded a bit Scrooge-like. In a last-minute effort to dispel that image, the President belatedly decided to allow the human chain to snake through the White House grounds and to join in himself. "This house," said Reagan, "belongs to all the people and is a symbol of the American dream." But for obvious security reasons, not "all the people" will be permitted in the White House segment of the line--only Secret Service agents, White House personnel and families and accredited journalists.

With reporting by Cathy Booth/New York and Richard Woodbury/Los Angeles, with other bureaus