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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With Knox Richardson

Aired November 24, 2001 - 11:43   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: In the long weeks since the disasters at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a New York woman and her Virginia friend are helping each other cope with the loss of their husbands and trying to figure out the future.

Here's CNN's Sheilah Kast with their stories.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHEILAH KAST, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For days after September 11, Traci Rowenhorst kept vigil at the Pentagon, praying her husband, Eddie, an Army budget analyst, would emerge. He did not.

Now, along with grief, her days are filled with paper -- forms to fill out for insurance, the government, the Red Cross, and other charities.

TRACI ROWENHORST, WIFE OF PENTAGON VICTIM: And it just drags it out longer and longer. Like, you want to get to a point where you can get over it and move on with your life and be emotionally stable with it, and this is just dragging it out.

DIANE SIMPSON, WIFE OF WORLD TRADE CENTER VICTIM: A whole lot of paperwork...

KAST: A few miles away, Diane Simpson spends hours each day trolling Web sites looking for where to call or write for help for herself and her triplets, aged 7. Her husband, Jeff, a licensed emergency medical technician, was working at his computer job in lower Manhattan that morning. He ran into the Twin Towers to help.

SIMPSON: I just feel like I just owe it to my kids, you know, that I need to figure everything out as best as I can.

KAST: Traci and Diane became friends in the wake of September 11, two young mothers joined by grief and a need for answers. Because her husband, Eddie, worked at the Pentagon, Traci has been assigned an Army officer who helps ferret out information. Diane and other families of New York victims don't get that kind of help.

SIMPSON: I've been a stay-at-home mom since the day they were born, and my husband, like Traci's, did all the finances, everything.

KAST: But now everything falls to them, like what to believe when Diane is told by a Red Cross volunteer that she is likely to get another check for living expenses in two months, while another Red Cross worker tells Traci the opposite?

(on camera): Many now say the charities should simply divide the money for the bereaved families and distribute it in equal lump sums. But a senior Red Cross official said the only fair way to use the money donated by Americans is to identify and pay specific expenses.

(voice-over): But what about the future?

ROWENHORST: We have girls who've got to go through marriages by their selves, college, educations, prom dresses, cars, maybe, whatever it is. Right now we may be comfortable, but we're looking down the road.

KAST: A road that is turning out to be even more of a challenge than they feared two months ago.

Sheilah Kast, CNN, northern Virginia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Sheilah touched on this a bit and we want to talk about donations and insurance and the widows and the children left behind from September 11 and the attacks that took place in New York.

We want to bring in the cofounder of the Twin Towers Orphan Fund, Knox Richardson. We've been talking quite a bit in the past couple of weeks, haven't we Knox, about the situations going on with the widows and the children, specifically the children and how they are losing out in more ways than one since September 11?

KNOX RICHARDSON, TWIN TOWERS ORPHAN FUND: Absolutely. That's totally true.

PHILLIPS: Well, let's talk about your organization first of all, and set up the purpose of your organization.

RICHARDSON: Well the Twin Towers Orphan Fund was founded on September 14 to provide long-term college educational support, as well as mental and physical health care for any child who lost a parent on September 11, be it in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, or on board any of the four airliners.

PHILLIPS: And what have you found to be one of the most complex issues? Is it insurance money?

RICHARDSON: Not exactly. The most complex issue we have is identifying and qualifying the children for benefits. Most of the children that we're benefiting, those who lost one or more parents, many of them I should say have left the New York Metropolitan area, have been placed in homes with aunts and uncles, grandparents, older siblings, guardians, in 17 different states around the country.

We find that when they do contact us, they're having a lot of trouble getting benefits. Part of our informal mission is to help them qualify with other organizations as well.

But the biggest challenge we have is letting them know that we exist and getting them to sign up for benefits for the long-term haul.

PHILLIPS: So Knox, how do they do that? What needs to happen here to trump this system, I guess political system if you will, if that's a correct way of putting it, that these kids get these benefits.

I mean you would think if they lost both parents that this would not be a difficult thing to do. These kids need the help.

RICHARDSON: Absolutely and we should note that not that many have lost both parents, but well over 250 have lost their sole surviving parent, making them totally orphaned in this context.

All they need to do is come to our web site at www.ttof.org and fill out a very simple, short form that will enable us to get back in touch with them through a qualified counselor.

We'll get some additional information at that time, get them registered into our database. Beginning in February, we expect to begin disbursements for long-term mental and physical health care, as well as college educations. And by long-term, we mean over the next 20 years.

PHILLIPS: Now I also want to make clear, you made up a good point. Your organization is called Twin Towers Orphan Fund, but let's talk about this word orphan for a minute. When we think of orphan, we think of a little waif with absolutely no place to go. But can you tell me that every child is in a safe environment now with either a relative, a friend or parent?

RICHARDSON: That's our understanding. We know of no child that has been placed into a foster care system or any other kind of orphan or child protective organization. Every child, at least through our registry, is with a surviving parent, an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent, older sibling or in at least one case, a state-appointed legal guardian.

PHILLIPS: And how have you been dealing with these children and the families? Tell me the process.

RICHARDSON: Well, for any family member, surviving parent, aunt or uncle, family friend can come to our web site and register them. Then a qualified grief counselor will get back on the phone with that contact, determine the eligibility of the child, the health status of the child, age, things of those nature. These are the factors that we will need in order to invest the funding into individual sub-trust accounts so that as they grow, the fund will grow, and when they reach college age, they'll be able to get a quality four-year university education.

The biggest challenge again we have is just finding them. Once we make the contact, we are also helping them get benefits. Since many of the children that we're helping have been removed from the New York and Washington metropolitan areas, as I said in 17 different states, it's often difficult for them to go to their local Red Cross, United Way Chapter for benefits.

We try to help streamline that process and put them in touch with the appropriate New York or Washington authorities.

PHILLIPS: I know you've raised $1 million so far. Your goal is $20 million. But how many kids are we talking about, and how much money are we talking about to make sure each one of those kids has a chance to go on and go to college and be successful adults?

RICHARDSON: To your first question, we're looking at approximately 2,300 children over the 20-year period. How much money? Well, we think $50,000 per child will ultimately be what's required to give them a quality four-year university level education, as well as to pay health insurance and certain medical bills.

I should note that the fund, through our trust funds, will be paying these bills directly. We're not looking to give grants or gifts to families. Instead, we will be paying college tuition offices, medical health providers, and health insurance companies directly to insure that every dime donated to the fund goes directly for the services that they were intended.

PHILLIPS: Knox Richardson, once again the name of the organization is the Twin Towers Orphan Fund. You can find it online. Make your donations, and even get updates about the kids too. Isn't that right, Knox?

RICHARDSON: That's correct. We have a kids-to-kids section, where actually kids can talk to the kids who have been affected by this. It's a wonderful web site created by our Web master Mr. Bashaw Weaver (ph), an I encourage everyone to go and just look at it, and even if they don't want to make a donation, there's a lot of good information there.

PHILLIPS: Knox, we appreciate your time.

RICHARDSON: Thank you very much.

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