Tornado: Status, Volunteers, Donations

It’s been nearly two weeks now. Things are getting better. Most of the roads have been reopened. Power is on for most people around here. The water is drinkable once again. Things aren’t quite normal, but they are much, much better.

There are a huge number of volunteers in town. My church is hosting quite a few. We’ve been fortunate to host the United Saints Recovery Project. They posted this note on their website —

The United Saints disaster response team would like to announce their arrival and successful establishment of a forward base at University Church of Christ in Tuscaloosa, AL.  Our efforts, which currently include 30 full time volunteers and two Americorps NCCC teams, would not be possible without Sandy Campbell and the local volunteers from University Church of Christ.  Their generosity and swift action to invite us into their community, keep us well fed, and give us a wonderful place to call home in Alabama, has been a phenomenal gesture.

We also have the Church of Christ Disaster Response Team. They are not just volunteering but also helping with coordination and oversight — a very welcome relief for our staff and many of our volunteers.

They’ve worked hard and been a tremendous help. Our building is filled with bedrolls where volunteers spend the night. Our members are providing them with breakfast and dinner so they can better use their time and resources in relief efforts.

But I can tell people are getting tired. It’s important that volunteers and donors not overburden those who are responsible for coordinating this massive recovery effort. Here are some guidelines —

Donations

The donation needs change day by day. At this point —

* Every relief organization and church in the city is awash in donated clothes. Please hold those donations until we have a chance to sort and distribute what we have. When our displaced families are moved into temporary housing, they’ll finally have a place to actually store their belongings, and there will again be need for donations. Until then, there is literally no place to store it.

* Money is the most valuable commodity now. Unlike the way Katrina affected the Gulf coast, we still have stores open, and so we can usually buy whatever is needed here, avoiding the cost of transportation and the need to unload, sort and warehouse. For a while, many stores had no power, and because of the disaster, they couldn’t handle the demands. But now it really helps to have cash to buy whatever today’s needs are, and the needs change daily.

You can donate by sending a check to the University Church of Christ –

University Church of Christ
1200 Julia Tutwiler Drive
Tuscaloosa, AL 35404

Mark checks “Disaster relief.” There will be no administrative costs associated with these donations. 100% will go to tornado relief.

* When people move to temporary housing, most will need help setting up house. At that time, we’ll likely need donations of all sorts of household and kitchen items. But we don’t know when that’s going to happen.

Volunteers

Hotel space is still essentially nonexistent. Volunteers need to make arrangements in advance for a place to stay. We at the University Church of Christ count it an honor to host volunteers at our building, but we need to know who’s coming so we can be sure there’s space. When you call, we may ask you to delay your plans to a date when we can better accommodate you.

Call the church before coming: 205-553-3001. We’re on Central Time. Or you can email my fellow elder Doug Key at doug(at)universitycofc(dot)org to make arrangements.

Also, the city is requiring that volunteers be registered with the city. You can start that process before you arrive, to speed getting to work. The church office can get you started.

Trucks

If you want to bring us a truckload of donations, we certainly need it (unless it’s clothes). But give us a few days advance notice. We’ll need to have people there to help unload it and we’ll need to plan for storage.

Nucor has a plant nearby, and they’ve been kind enough to lend us both a forklift and forklift operator. Very wonderful! But they need to know when they are needed so they can make plans.

Again, we are delighted to receive the donations. We just need some notice.

Conclusion

We are more grateful than I know how to express for all the prayers, donations, and volunteer hours. They’re making a big difference.

It’s been an overwhelming couple of weeks, and there’s much more to go. But knowing that so many people from all over care so much has been a huge lift for our spirits.

Community matters. Unity matters.