We Got This (Occupy Sandy) from Alex Mallis on Vimeo.

There’s been plenty of criticism about Occupy. I reported on it for almost a year and I totally get it. There were plenty of shortcomings. Occupy’s outreach for Hurricane Sandy victims, however, is not one of those shortcomings. As the video shows, they have set up a commander center to organize and get out goods. OccupySMS was created so those without power or internet but with a cell phone could reach out for help.

Occupy has two outposts good for new volunteers in Clinton Hill and Sunset Park.

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It’s probably not a coincidence that a green and white school bus with “OCCUPY” painted on it is currently parked outside the future site of Brooklyn’s first Whole Foods.

As I posted yesterday, the city granted Whole Foods a zoning variance that would allow it to build at 3rd Avenue and 3rd Street in Gowanus, ending an eight year effort to get the project going. No word yet on what the Occupy activists are planning to do there.

Update: It turns out that the bus has been parked in that location for at least two years. The vehicle is known as the “Vroom Bus” and predates the Occupy movement, with which it has since aligned itself. According to a blog post from February 2011, the bus runs on vegetable oil and belongs to “the Vroom Collective – a group dedicated to transporting activists and artists throughout the country.” So it looks like it is a coincidence after all, but at least they won’t have to travel far for this cause.