RACINE — It has been a month since Hurricane Ian swept across Florida, but the historic damage and recovery efforts have largely been overshadowed by other news.
Journeying to do good: Racine-based Disaster Team helps Florida recover from Hurricane Ian
For the people of Florida, the aftermath goes on largely out of the spotlight.
Jeff Berard, director of the Journey Disaster Team, serving Racine, Kenosha, and Walworth counties, has been in continual contact with national partners about what they may need to help the people of Florida recover.
The team was able to send a semi-truck loaded with supplies to an area near Fort Myers last week, thanks to their many partners — including Amazon and Burlington’s Boss Services LLC, who donated the semi that transported 23 pallets of necessities.
“We loaded up that truck full of critical supplies that were needed in the area,” Berard said.
Supplies included non-perishable food, diapers, baby wipes, Gatorade, energy drinks and gloves for the cleanup.
Members of Journey Church raised the $4,000 for fuel.
This is the second natural disaster the Journey Disaster Team has responded to this year. In January and February, members of the team traveled to Kentucky following deadly tornadoes.
In Florida
Pastor Wendell Smith provided a written update from Hardee County, Florida, a rural area that was hit with a Category 2 hurricane and winds up to 105 mph.
He said the hurricane hit at about 8 p.m. Wednesday night and the effects lasted until the morning hours. He described the wind damage and flooding as significant. They were without power for seven days.
Cutting Edge Ministries Food Bank, an effort by Faith Temple Church of God, was ready Saturday morning to begin passing out food and drink.
Smith said 3,600 people were served from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., with the help of volunteers and local authorities.
“Even with our church damaged and flooded, we moved and activated assistance to families,” Smith said, adding they distributed supplies to over 9,000 people with the first two weeks.
He sent his thanks and appreciation to the Journey Disaster Response Team for that semi of supplies.
“Thanks to God for his protection and our preparation to be ready to help people,” Smith wrote. “We received food and products even after to continue to help families with the truckload of supplies from Journey Church and their partner network with the heart to drive from Wisconsin to (the Florida city of) Wauchula.”
The Journey Disaster Team works with national partners to aid in the disaster response to other regions. The partners include Christ in Action and Convoy of Hope.
“These are well-established, highly-regarded disaster relief teams,” Berard said. “They’re very good at what they do.”
Christ in Action volunteers are already on the ground in Florida distributing supplies and helping with the cleanup.
Berard said there is a lot of debris removal and demolition that still needs to be done. Homeowners need help removing the drywall from the interior of their homes, so the structure can dry out.
Volunteering with homeowners is a rewarding experience, Berard said. The service is free of charge to the homeowner to help them recover from the disaster.
“This saves homeowners a tremendous amount of money, time and effort,” he said. “That’s what these organizations do … Volunteers are there to make sure they can bless that family who is already experiencing a huge amount of devastation and are really fighting to figure out how they’re going to recover.”
Many hands
In order to assist their national partners, the Journey Response Team is conducting outreach to recruit more volunteers.
Berard explained not every job is removing drywall or removing fallen trees. There are a number of volunteer opportunities that do not require heavy lifting. As one example, volunteers are also needed to prepare meals and sort the donations coming in.
“This is a massive operation with historic damage, which will take many months or longer before these people recover,” Berard said of those impacted by Hurricane Ian. “There’s a large amount of help that’s going to be needed to cover the amount of work there is to do.”
Volunteers can serve in Florida as long as they’re able — whether that be for a few days, weeks or months. Additionally, clubs, organizations, corporations and church groups may also participate and send volunteers.
“Plenty of people in this area just have huge hearts and they just want to help,” Berard said. “We want people to know we are the contact for those with questions about serving. We can connect them to the right people.”
“As a regional team and the point of contact for this area, we’d like to see who’s interested, and who has the ability to go down there and help,” he added. “We can provide information and get them to Florida to serve, if that’s what they want to do.”
Campaign
In addition to recruiting volunteers, the Journey Disaster Team has launched a campaign to raise funds for the response.
Getting people and supplies to Florida — and taking care of the volunteers while they are there — is expensive.
Berard said the team will be working to get the support of individuals, businesses and corporate sponsors to help fund the effort.
All the money raised, he continued, will be restricted to funding the response to Florida.
“The people of Florida do need help from southeast Wisconsin communities, individuals, businesses and corporations,” he said. “We really need to come together, so we can help these folks.”