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Virginia, Michigan, Tennessee churches "tireless" in helping hurricane evacuees
Tonya and her three children, Gulf hurricane evacuees now in Knoxville, TN
Photo: Church of the Good Samaritan, Knoxville
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Richmond, VA -- Gulf hurricane evacuees displaced to communities across the United States continue to have many needs. A key to the Church World Service-sponsored evacuee assistance program is mobilizing local congregations, which are proving tireless in their willingness to help.
CWS, the humanitarian agency, is working with its Miami Office and eight of its local refugee resettlement affiliates in communities across the U.S. to provide comprehensive, individualized services to Gulf Coast residents who have relocated to their communities.
Among participating CWS affiliates are the Virginia Council of Churches Resettlement Program (VCC), based in Richmond; PARA Refugee Services, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services, based in Knoxville.
The VCC is assisting Gulf hurricane evacuees through its Richmond, Hampton Roads/Newport News, and Harrisonburg, VA, offices.
VCC-Hampton Roads is working to link local churches with hurricane evacuees to assist with housing, employment, transportation and furnishings. The VCC's Teri Doddy reported many ongoing needs -- and congregations' tireless help.
"Their hearts are wide open," she said. "I think we all realize it could be any one of us. When you are sitting in front of someone who has been affected, you can't walk away. I've cried with people, hugged them, taken them to the doctor. Several people who spent days in their flooded homes before being rescued still are ill from the mold and mildew."
Evacuees "break down, a lot of them. They are frustrated. They think they've been forgotten. I've seen grown men break down. One man said, 'Don't think I'm not appreciative. I was brought up to work hard and take care of my family. This is the hardest thing I've had to do in my life.' I said, 'I'm sure that if it were me and my family in need, you'd be right there helping me,'" Doddy said.
"I've never seen anything like this before," she added. "You feel helpless, want to cry, and then you turn around and get determined to help these people get on their feet, step by step. We all need to open our eyes and realize what's around us -- homelessness and other situations. We get hardened to the needs right in our own backyard. But I think people are coming together at a time when we really need it."
Among Virginia congregations to lend a hand is Courthouse Community United Methodist Church in Virginia Beach, VA, which started by assembling and shipping 100 CWS "Gift of the Heart" Health Kits and numerous emergency Clean-up Buckets for Gulf hurricane survivors, then contributed almost $12,000 through the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) for its post-hurricane response.
In addition, the congregation signed up to provide an evacuee family of five with "hospitality" for up to six months. The church is offering housing and employment assistance, food and furnishings. And for Thanksgiving, it will deliver a turkey and all the trimmings to each of three evacuee families, Doddy said.
Lynnhaven United Methodist Church in Virginia Beach is sponsoring a woman, her parents, and her two children, providing housing and employment assistance, furnishings, clothing and food. Ebenezer United Methodist Church in Suffolk, VA, is "sponsoring a couple completely, providing housing for up to six months, furnishings, food, clothing, and trying to find them a vehicle."
Congregations that can't manage a full sponsorship are joining with others to meet their new neighbors' needs. Schools "are accepting these folks right away," Doddy said. "Walmart is hiring evacuees on the spot, and furniture stores are donating brand-new furniture. Lots of times it's simply a matter of telling businesses what the needs are and specifically how to help."
A hurricane survivor who found an apartment in Norfolk turned to the Virginia Council of Churches for help relocating after it became clear how rough the neighborhood was. "She heard gunshots every day," Doddy said. "Two churches offered to help her move."
Doddy said she's also working to help a couple who remain stuck in a hotel room "waiting for housing, out of money and with no transport. They get Food Stamps but they have no money for toiletries," including feminine hygiene items. Food Stamps don't cover non-food items. "It's degrading to have to call someone for your bare necessities," Doddy said.
In Harrisonburg, VA, the VCC's Cathy Smith is building a network of church support for the Waynesboro, Harrisonburg, and Staunton areas. "I've been impressed with the willingness of churches and individuals to help people," she said, even people in a nearby city whom "they'll probably never meet." For example, several Harrisonburg churches are providing assistance to evacuees living in Waynesboro.
Smith met a number of evacuees at a Nov. 5 "welcome day" for evacuees in Staunton, VA, organized by the Staunton Community Church Committee with assistance from the Booker T. Washington Alumni. She asked evacuees about their urgent, specific unmet needs, and got Staunton First Presbyterian Church and volunteers from Trinity Presbyterian Church, Harrisonburg, involved in helping two single evacuees.
"There's been a lot of organization, and people are so willing to give," Smith said. "Churches ask how to help, and within a couple days someone's taken care of it."
Michigan Churches Welcome "Our New Neighbors"
PARA Refugee Services, the Church World Service affiliate in Grand Rapids, Mich., had assessed 21 evacuees' needs by the end of October, and already had matched many with congregational sponsors. Cornerstone United Methodist Church in Grand Rapids stepped forward to help a Louisiana man find his own place after living in a temporary shelter for more than a month. Sunshine Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids is assisting a New Orleans woman who got stranded in Grand Rapids when Hurricane Katrina hit.
First United Methodist Church and three Christian Reformed congregations -- Cascade Fellowship, Westview and South Grandville -- also are sponsoring families who relocated to Grand Rapids from the U.S. Gulf Coast. And PARA and key coordinators of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, which includes 30 African American churches in Grand Rapids, are laying the groundwork for the Alliance to sponsor several evacuee families. Alliance leaders participated in an Oct. 25 training on how best to help people displaced by the Gulf hurricanes. "The leaders were using the term 'our new neighbors' to refer to evacuees, which we found refreshing," said Jotham Ippel, Director, PARA Refugee Services.
Brand-New Mother Is Among Evacuees Served In Knoxville
CWS affiliate Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services in Knoxville, TN, had evaluated 54 evacuees' needs by the end of October. Case manager Kim Spoon is working closely with the Compassion Coalition, a group of about 120 churches active in assisting evacuees.
Spoon has helped about 17 families find permanent housing and is asking church sponsors to provide donated items, grocery and gas cards, and to help the families integrate into their new communities. Several Knoxville churches have agreed to provide Thanksgiving baskets so that families have food to prepare their dinners. One church, the Fellowship Christian Church, is planning to pick up some single evacuees who are living at a hotel and to bring them to church for a Thanksgiving meal and fellowship. Cedar Grove Baptist Church has donated items to one family; another church is helping a woman who just got out of the hospital after heart surgery. The church is trying to help her husband find a new job so he doesn't have to drive 160 miles round trip to his current job.
The Church of the Good Samaritan (Episcopal) has helped 21-year-old Jessica and her husband set up their new house - just in time for the arrival of their new baby. "They have a mothers' support group that will be helping her," Spoon said. Congregants delivered a crib and other baby goods to her home.
This congregation also is sponsoring another woman, Tonya, and her three young children -- among the about 100 hurricane evacuees waiting to move from Knoxville hotels into their own apartments. Tonya said she hopes to find housing soon, adding that the church is collecting furniture and household goods for when they move.
Spoon and the church "have been such a blessing," Tonya said. Since it just got cold this week, the church gave her a giftcard to Walmart so she could buy her family warm clothes and has also collected coats for the family. Congregants also are planning a Thanksgiving dinner for Tonya and her family.
Giving priority to people most in need, the Church World Service program is helping hurricane evacuees sort out the myriad disaster relief programs; find jobs, health care, and affordable housing and furnishings; get their children enrolled in school, and get oriented to and integrated into their new communities.
"This privately funded program takes the professional case management and congregational co-sponsorship model that CWS uses to help refugees -- people fleeing persecution in their home countries for safety in the United States -- and applying it to help meet the particular needs of Americans displaced by the Gulf hurricanes," says Erol Kekic, Associate Director of the CWS Immigration and Refugee Program.
National church bodies that support the CWS Immigration and Refugee Program stepped forward with special funding for the hurricane evacuees, and additional money has been raised as part of public appeals for funds to support a broad CWS program of assistance to Gulf hurricane survivors. CWS/IRP participating denominations are: American Baptist Churches in the USA, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Christian Reformed Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Reformed Church in America, United Church of Christ, and United Methodist Church.
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