It began as a single voice last night in Dayton, Ohio, one person shouted “Do Something”, and others quickly joined in. “Do something,” other people began to yell.

Their cries grew louder and louder until what started as a smatter of voices morphed into a deafening chant that echoed off the walls and stores of the historic downtown buildings and drowned out the platitude-spewing Governor, more tired cliches.

It was the right chant at the right place at the right time, and I heard it down to the core.  I’m going to do something in the way that I can do something.

I called  Mike Tolan and Sue Silverstein at the Bishop Maginn High School and asked them when the final Bishop Maginn 2019 Teacher’s Amazon Wish List for September was going up on Amazon.

They were working on it as we spoke – the teacher’s own choices for the tools they need to help the poor and refugee children who will be in their classrooms in just a few weeks.

The list is up, here it is, the new Bishop Maginn High School Teachers Amazon Wish List for the 2019 school year, 20 items (some multiple copies of books the teachers want their students to read.). By 6 p.m., there were only 10 items left on the list.

If you need it, the address of the school for Amazon is: Bishop Maginn High School, 75 Park Avenue, Albany, N.Y., 12202, The phone number is 518 463 2247. You can add the address to your address book if you wish to return to the list.

The Bishop Maginn Teachers List has become a social media thing, teachers and good-hearted people from all over the country rushing to support the school’s teachers, who have been paying for school supplies out of their own pockets for some time. Not this year.

I was interested to see that two books by Shakespeare, including Hamlet and one by Malcome Gladwell, were added to the list by the school’s English teacher, they are reaching beyond textbooks, it is a pleasure to help them do that.

The kids could not afford to buy those books, inexpensive as they are.

Teachers all over the country know this story – crowded and underfunded schools, teachers working two or three jobs, buying supplies out of their own money. And the list will make certain that the students will have the assigned books to read and study.

Since at least one of the attacks yesterday focused tragically on refugees and immigrants, this wishlist is a way for me to respond. Send us your tempest-tost, this is America.

It is important for me to turn my pain and anger into action, I’ve been doing that for some time.  Perhaps some of you will wish to do the same.

The cowardly people sworn to protect us and our children are beyond me and my power. At the moment, leadership is an illusion,  a fiction. We are on our own.

Whether they take action or not, I can and will move forward. Supporting this school is my argument, my statement, my action for right now.

I’m sure people have their own ideas about what, if anything, they wish to do.

But I want to share what I’m going to do and perhaps this will offer a positive way for people to channel their frustration and anger. There is hope in doing good, and comfort. It’s all I can offer. But to these refugee children, who have suffered so much, it’s everything. It is important they feel welcome in their new country and that they understand that most Americans are generous and kind.

The refugees and immigrants who were targeted yesterday are very much in my consciousness, I see them and talk with them almost every day now.

I am committed to doing something to help them and reassure them that there is love and support for them. They are the homeless and tempest-tost, they are not murderers and thieves and rapists.

Here’s what I am going to do this week.

The teachers at the Bishop Maginn High School have put up their wishlist, the second, and I will support it. These are their own choices. My goal is that no teacher at the school needs to spend their own money on school supplies this year.

The list ranges from $4.33 each for 30 books about the genocide in Cambodia, something all too familiar to many of the school’s students, to $15.99 trash cans to a $69.99 baseball and softball practice net (they lose a lot of their baseballs).

It’s a practical list, and an inexpensive one Shakespeare’s Hamlet is also on the list, $30 for $9.14.

Secondly, Principal Mike Tolan and I have talked extensively about a Tuition Support Program for needy students, many refugees, desperate to get into the school. Tolan says at least half of the student body come from families without enough money for the full tuition. We can help.

We’ll take the needy students one at a time, and do what we can. They don’t need to pay the full tuition, just something. More about that later.

So you can see the new Teacher’s Wish List here, straight out of the teacher’s needs. We can do something today, something that is positive and healing and in my view, patriotic. Here goes, and thank you.