Youth group volunteer Scott Tennent supervises teenagers of the Burke United Methodist Church youth group as they load cleaning kits onto the church van Sept. 17 before these disaster relief supplies were hauled all the way toward Richmond two days later.
“I was ordering this before the hurricanes hit,” explains Christie Johnson on a
Tuesday night, Sept 19 as she looks at the large boxes of humanitarian relief supplies stacked in her kitchen and dining room. She is ready for a special service Sept. 24 at the Fairfax United Methodist Church, where anyone willing to participate in outreach missions are called to donate winter coats and accessories for the homeless, gently used intimate apparel women can sell in third world countries, and backpacks for school children in the Philippines.
That’s not all.
Dozens of people assembled 300 personal hygiene kits and filled 25 flood
buckets Sunday with cleaning supplies for survivors of six natural disasters. No one could predict the magnitude of catastrophic losses in just four weeks. Certainly not the FUMC congregation, which holds a fundraiser each year during Lent to benefit various church missions.
“We were blessed with more than we usually collect,” said Johnson. Church members wanted more hands-on mission projects available for multi-generational opportunities in a short amount of time. The Sept. 24 “Outreach Sunday” event puts the surplus to work.
“You’ve come for two hours and you’ve done something amazing,” Johnson said. She and her mother-in-law spent considerable time online ordering disaster relief supplies in bulk to make those dollars stretch and fill as many critical needs that $3,500 can buy.
THE FAIRFAX UNITED METHODIST team received an additional $2,000 in donations since Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas Aug. 25. The money will go to the United Methodist Committee on Relief. This Atlanta-based charity distributes supplies and cash to first responders in disaster zones worldwide. They also join forces with other humanitarian aid agencies to alleviate human suffering as quickly as possible.
Each personal hygiene bag costs about $12 to make and each flood bucket costs $65 to fill. Learn how to assemble these disaster relief kits at www.umcor.org.
Furthermore, UMCOR is poised to respond to pleas for help from seven states affected by wildfires out West, according to a Sept. 22 report on their website. The U.S. Forest Service has an interactive wildfire map online at www.fs.fed.us.
“Methodism is faith in action,” Johnson affirms and points out UMCOR is among several faith-based charities that help the Federal Emergency Management Agency respond to crisis situations through the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster – a disaster relief association in Alexandria near the King Street Metrorail Station.
BURKE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH showed visitors of their booth how to
make UMCOR cleaning kits Sept. 9 and 10 at the annual Burke Centre Festival, where they collected $300 for flood victims.
The church also was a community drop-off center in direct response to Hurricane Harvey and subsequent disasters.
Burke United Methodist collected supplies from St. Stephen’s UMC in Burke, St. George’s UMC in Fairfax and Sterling UMC in Loudoun County.
“We delivered 136 flood buckets and 101 health kits to the collection point in Richmond,” reported Burke UMC outreach missions director Jane Wilson in an email last week. The United Methodist Church in Northern Virginia lists Burke UMC as a flood bucket collection facility through noon Oct. 10 at Burke Center Parkway and Burke Lake Road. She says about 30 cleaning kits have been dropped off this week. Details are available online at www.burkeumc.org and www.novaumc.org/hurricane-relief-information.
Cranford UMC in Lorton and Warrenton UMC in Fauquier County collected flood buckets and other disaster relief supplies through Sept. 22, according to www.novaumc.org. The Arlington Forest and First Vietnamese-American UMC raised funds through a weekend car wash earlier this month before another catastrophic 7.1 magnitude earthquake devastated central Mexico Sept. 19 and Hurricane Maria nearly demolished Puerto Rico a day later, leaving two more humanitarian crises in their wakes.
“We are God’s hands and feet in this world,” Wilson said.
<inline type="text" title="" align="right" >Generous donors were quick to open their hearts and wallets in response to recent natural disasters. Unfortunately, local charities are bracing for tighter operating budgets soon due to storm fatigue. Jane Wilson, director of outreach missions at the Burke