Heading north along Beach 121st Street in Belle Harbor for a Brownstoner Queens assignment, I was, at first, temporarily perplexed by the wood five-pointed stars affixed to hundreds of telephone poles along the main and side streets. I wasn’t surprised to learn that they are the work of an organization called Stars of Hope, initiated after an EF-5 tornado leveled Greensburg, Kansas in May 2007. Stars of Hope, supported by donations, produces thousands of plain wood stars, which are then decorated by residents (especially children) of areas and neighborhoods devastated by acts of God and man, attaching them to public utility poles to help communities recover in spirit.
7/29/14