The Times (North Little Rock, Arkansas)
Churches pitch in for relief effort
By Deborah Horn

Staff Writer

Since the first Gulf Coast residents began arriving in North Little Rock the Sunday before the Hurricane Katrina made landfall, churches around North Little Rock and Sherwood have reached out to the evacuees with compassion and an efficiency that should leave the federal government impressed.

“We felt like we were behind at first” as families began to arrive, said Finis Brewer, youth and family minister at Somers Avenue Church of Christ in North Little Rock.

But that quickly changed as church members quickly volunteered to prepare meals at the Patrick Henry Hays Senior Citizens Center on Pershing Boulevard, provide transportation to and from shelters and hotels, donate gas cards and offer the church at 4801 Somers Ave. as a drop-off point for the Red Cross, Brewer said.

Volunteers handed out household items and clothes, and would decide to adopt eight displaced families — helping them with housing and the necessary items needed to get their temporary homes up and running.

“We’re trying to give them as much help as they need,” Brewer said.

These folks, he said, have “the ability and desire to start again,” and the church is committed to helping those families for the long term.

Across the city, this volunteer spirit has replayed over and over, and since the first meal was served at the Senior Center by Gardner Memorial United Methodist Church of North Little Rock, churches, businesses and restaurants have served two meals a day to Gulf Coast residents. And the center is booked with organizations wanting to serve meals until the end of the month, said the center’s assistant Director Brenda Glover.

For Lonnie Mantey of Jefferson Parish, La., and Wilma Hopkins, of Harahan, La., who were visiting the Senior Center on Tuesday evening, the kitchen, free commissary and help center have been “a one-stop for our problems.”

The friends decided to evacuate the coast Friday evening, but didn’t leave until Sunday and arriving in North Little Rock late that night, Mantey said. With the help of a volunteer, they’ve found a place to live and are now in the process of finding furniture to fill their apartment, Hopkins said.

Tuesday evening, the Methodist Men of Levy United Methodist Church were serving a spaghetti supper, the second time they served a meal at the Senior Center. Church member Walter Shelton estimated that it would cost about $350 to serve a meal for the 150 people expected show up.

Shelton’s daughter, Kim Gardner, was helping with the prep work in the kitchen. Both said they were volunteering because they wanted to do something to help, even if their only accomplishment is “that they leave with happy tummies,” Shelton said.

“There are plenty of times in my life when I needed help and people stepped up and helped me out,” added Rick Jones, also a Methodist Men member.” I’m trying to do the same.”

Besides, “this needed to be done,” he said about the meal.

Frank Picone, from Metairie, La., was near the front of the food line that evening, smiling.

“People here have been great,” he said.

While his mother talked with a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) representative, Gerald Blancher scanned the job postings near the entrance of the Senior Center. He and his group were on their way to a meal being served at the Crossroads Baptist Church on Kiehl Avenue in Sherwood.

“It’s a nice gesture,” Blancher said.

He was joined by North Little Rock resident Mike Busbea, who said the outpouring of help has made him “awfully proud of the community.”

For many it’s a sense of moral obligation or responsibility that caused them to volunteer. For others it’s the hope that, if they were in a similar situation, that someone would extend a hand to their family.

“First you love God, then love your neighbor as yourself . . . Christ makes it plain that we must try to take care of others’ needs,” Brewer said.

Personally, he said there is a satisfaction in helping others.

Oran Burt, pastor for the Somers Avenue Church, said his congregation has been partnering with the Central Arkansas Transportation Authority (CATA) to provide transportation to Katrina’s victims.

Pastor Will Feland of First Christian Church said his Sherwood congregation members have dug into their pockets and taken up a special collection — netting $2,500 — for the relief work on the ground, preparing health and school kits through the nonprofit Rice Depot. This evening, the church will be feeding the city’s newest residents smoked pork loin at the Senior Center.

“Volunteers continue to ask what can we do, and the church has also adopted a family,” he said.

Not everyone from the area was working here at home. George Peters, a member of the Levy Baptist Church and a part-time copyeditor at The Times, signed up with the Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief team out of Searcy to operate a cooking unit — a converted semi trailer — at Kenner, La., south of New Orleans. The truck was “stuffed full of food,” and was prepared to dish out as many as 12,000 meals each day, Peters said.

Throughout the South, 24 units from the convention fanned out across Mississippi and Louisiana, and Peters estimated that the group is preparing 240,000 meals a day, all told.

First Christian’s Feland said the response across the community was “heart-warming.”

“This area should be proud of what their churches have done,” he said. “Churches are accustomed to stepping up to the plate during a time of need.”

Unlike the government, the church was able to mobilize quickly, he added.

The sheer scope of this disaster is so great and the long-term needs of individuals and families are much greater than other tragedies, including the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Feland said. He said he believes that the community “feels a close connection” to the Gulf Coast residents now in Arkansas.

“This was a life-changing event for these people,” he said, and many not only lost homes, but family members and friends and their community. That’s a tough adjustment for anyone, he said.

“It could be you or I in that same predicament,” Feland added.

Donnie Cook, a member of the Sylvan Hills Church of Christ, said his church responded “with a team effort” when serving up 170 meals at the Senior Center. The church has been working in conjunction with other Churches of Christ in Louisiana to provide truckloads of bottled water, food, clothing and five-gallon buckets containing cleaning supplies, Cook said.

“We were hoping and praying that the hurricane wasn’t as bad as first thought, and then we found out people had nothing,” Cook said. “These folks are no different than a lot of us, living payday to payday, and now a hotel has become their home. We’re hoping to relieve some of their financial needs and emotional hurts.

“The generosity of the community is immeasurable,” he added.

Brewer summed up the outpouring of the local churches like this: “It’s amazing. Even the small kindnesses have made a big difference. But this isn’t a charity; you never know when you might need someone else’s help.

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Kim Gardner and Sarah Current, from Levy United Methodist Church, cook a pan of cheese-covered spaghetti. Photo by Randy Metcalf