Record Details:

Brethren Disaster Ministries - 5/11 MO Tornado

Main/General Business Number: 1-800-451-4407
Website: http://www.brethren.org/BDM/

Management Contact: (hidden)
Management Phone: (hidden)






This organization provides Temporary or Permanent Service? Temporary

Notes:

construction labor provided free of charge, supplies not provided

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Brethren Respond to Deadly Tornadoes
Jane Yount May 24, 2011

Children’s Disaster Services responds in Joplin, Missouri

Brethren Disaster Ministries reports on preliminary activities, requests EDF grant

At the request of the American Red Cross, a team of CDS volunteers will be arriving late this evening or early tomorrow morning to set up a Children’s Disaster Services Center at the Missouri Southern State University shelter in Joplin, Missouri. The volunteers will care for children in the aftermath of the tornado that caused significant destruction on May 22, 2011. The twister rated a strong EF 4, packing winds up to 198 mph, and cut a path a mile wide and six miles long through the most densely populated area of the city of 49,000.

Search and rescue personnel today are about halfway through a full grid search of the area of tornado destruction. The fatality count was confirmed at 117 early Tuesday morning, May 24, with 200 missing and more than 400 injured. In light of the high number of fatalities, CDS is also assessing the need for dispatching a Critical Response Childcare team to work with traumatized children in the FEMA family assistance center.

In a conversation with Patricia Dennison, Missouri/Arkansas District disaster coordinator, Brethren Disaster Ministries staff were told that there has been no request for volunteers from outside the area, unless they are affiliated with a responding agency. Security around the disaster zone is very tight, and unaffiliated volunteers will likely be prohibited from entering the impacted area for safety reasons.

Following a conference call with the Missouri VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster), Dennison reported that the area is “being overwhelmed with truckloads of clothes,” and officials are hard pressed to find more places to store them. She says they’re asking people instead to “donate them to a local charity or have a large garage sale and send the money” to be used where most needed. Responding with much-needed monetary donations is the best way to help disaster relief organizations which already have been stretched by the severe weather this spring.

Darrell Barr, W. Plains District disaster coordinator, and Gary Gahm, Church of the Brethren member from Kansas City, Mo., participated on the MO VOAD conference call as well. Barr, who lives only about 30 miles from Joplin across the Kansas state line, also represented BDM in a face-to-face agency meeting in Joplin this afternoon with FEMA and other disaster response partners. Brethren Disaster Ministries will use the information from such meetings to help guide its response activities.

Roy Winter, BDM Executive Director, has phoned Carolyn Schrock, MO/AR District Executive to share BDM’s willingness to help the district with any storm-related needs. Schrock confirmed that there are no Church of the Brethren congregations close to Joplin. However, one non-Brethren congregation, Nueva Vida, located in Carthage, Mo., has informal ties to the MO/AR District, and its pastor, Edwin Reyes and his family live in Joplin.

Ruben Deoleo, Intercultural Ministries Director for the Church of the Brethren, called Pastor Reyes to inquire about how the tornado may have affected his family and members of the church. Reyes shared that his sons were at Wal-Mart when the tornado struck the city. One was hit by an object on the back and the other on his legs, but both of them are fine, as is the rest of the family. He also shared that his house filled up with water and he and his family are staying at his brother's house. He had no word about any of the church members. Schrock stated that the District “will be waiting to hear of any (unmet) needs of this congregation.”

Remarking that “the 2011 spring storm season has been one of the most devastating on record,” BDM associate director Zachary Wolgemuth has requested a grant from the Church of the Brethren Emergency Disaster Fund to assist with relief and recovery efforts of Church World Service. “In all,” he said, “residents in approximately 15 states have suffered major damage.” The request for $15,000 follows an earlier grant of $7,500. CWS is responding in numerous communities; shipping clean-up buckets, hygiene kits, school kits, baby kits and blankets. The grant will support further material aid shipments as well as resources for the development of long-term recovery groups in affected communities. Additional grants are expected as the needs become known.

To support the 2011 U.S. Spring Storms appeal, send your gift to Emergency Disaster Fund, Church of the Brethren, 1451 Dundee Avenue, Elgin, IL 60120. Give online at www.brethren.org/disaster.

(Jane Yount is coordinator for Brethren Disaster Ministries in New Windsor, Md.)

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