North Carolina Baptist Men (NCBM) distributed more than 12,000 meals a day from their Manna One food preparation unit in Williamston the week following the landfall of Hurricane Irene. These efforts are part of a wider response helping people across coastal North Carolina in their recovery.
Some 60 men and women volunteers were manning the Manna One mobile food preparation unit, set up a vacant lot in downtown Williamston Aug. 31. The volunteers prepared 11,652 meals on Aug. 30, said John Gore, the “white hat” incident commander overseeing the food ministry.
“We had no power when we arrived Sunday, but they got it back later,” said Gore, a member of Greenwood Baptist Church in Thomasville. He said most meals were being distributed in and around Williamston by the American Red Cross, operating a fleet of emergency response trucks. Volunteers packed individual meals in Styrofoam boxes, and the boxes in insulated containers, assuring that most people would get warm meals.
BSC photo by Mike Creswell North Carolina Baptist Men volunteers serve lunch to local people Aug. 31. The group was set up in Williamston, one of several places along eastern North Carolina where volunteers are helping residents. |
But volunteers also served hundreds of meals to local people, many of whom were still without electricity. “Bless you!” said one grateful woman as she accepted two box lunches that consisted of hamburger steak, lima beans, mixed fruit, bread and cookies, along with either tea or punch. Several of the men and women working under the hot noon sun were members of nearby Memorial Baptist Church, where many volunteers were staying and others manned phones and handled the intense, behind-the-scenes coordination required to keep people, supplies and multiple response organizations functioning smoothly.
Gore said more volunteers were expected to arrive from across North Carolina and 40 or 50 Baptist volunteers from Arkansas. Methodists and Roman Catholics offered to house volunteers, plus one local person offered a vacant store equipped with air conditioning and bathrooms for visiting volunteers to use.
Many of the volunteers in Williamston were from western North Carolina, recalling how coastal Baptists came to their aid in 2005 when heavy floods struck wide areas of the western part of the state. Jo Davidson, working with coordination, is a member of Ellijay Missionary Baptist Church, just upstream near the Cullasaja River where mudslides killed several people that year.
NCBM also has a major food preparation ministry under way in New Bern, recovering work in Greenville, and other sites still being evaluated for future work. Baptist Men from Kentucky arrived Sept. 1 to begin helping with recovery efforts in Greenville. Baptist Men volunteers from Mississippi are helping with recovery in Ahoskie.
“We are mainly working in Martin and Bertie counties from here in Williamston,” Gore said. In addition to the food ministry, some 30 other N.C. Baptist Men volunteers were helping homeowners clear the many fallen trees in the area.
Gore went over to Washington, about 25 miles away, on Aug. 29 to welcome a 45-member team of Baptist Men from Florida who came to help with recovery.
Two days later that team was preparing up to 6,000 meals a day from a base they set up initially at Second Baptist Church in Washington, said Fritz Wilson, who serves as director of disaster relief and recovery with the Florida Baptist Convention, based in Jacksonville, Fla.
Most of the cooking team came from First Baptist Church, Ocala, which transported most of the team in one of their buses for the 550-mile journey. Other teams were out clearing downed trees for homeowners.
“You guys in North Carolina have driven down to help us many times over the years, so that’s why we’re happy we’re here to help you,” said Wilson, who said it was his third trip to North Carolina to help with hurricane response.
Dale Duncan, active N.C. Baptist Men volunteer and former state president, was on hand to help coordinate with the Florida volunteers. He is a member of First Baptist Church in Spruce Pine.
Wilson said NCBM’s volunteers have been great partners with Florida Baptists in ongoing ministry in Haiti as well.
As boldly proclaimed on their trucks, Florida Baptists support disaster relief through their Cooperative Program giving.
N.C. Baptist Men are instead primarily funded through the North Carolina Missions Offering, which is being promoted across the state this month. Meeting the NCMO goal of $2.1 million will assure that N.C. Baptist Men can continue to have the equipment and other resources needed to respond to disasters like Irene. Disaster relief is just one of the 14 ministries carried out by N.C. Baptist Men in North Carolina and beyond.
To donate to NCMO, go to ncmissionsoffering.org or call (800) 395-5102, ext. 5547.
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