Recent Pictures from New Orleans

I had the pleasure of spending the weekend of May 20-21 with the Hilltop leadership in Chalmette. Plans are in progress and solidifying for setting up the next relief operation in the next disaster area. Hilltop will be scouting and opening a basecamp when the times comes and organizations like Servants Unite will be sending in volunteers and supplies.

You can see all my best pics from that trip here

More volunteers and church families are needed to provide resources for the next relief operation as well as continuing our work in New Orleans. We need to be working now to collect water, non-perishable food, baby kit, personal care kit, and cleaning kit components. We need volunteers to serve the following roles immediately:

• Set up a collection of supplies at your church or business and staff it.
• Talk to your church missions group and leadership about making Servants Unite a supported organization of your church.
• Be a liason between your church family and Servants Unite. Primarily that's a communications channel.
• Continue to volunteer to work in New Orleans.
• Volunteer to be a first responder for the next disaster.
  

Several have done this recently! Thanks to Tegan who works with Team 7s Corey Bradenback. She organized the collection of a pickup load of cleaning kits at IntelliRisk. Girl Scout Troop #1721 purchased and donated several cases of cookies to send down. The ag science students at Ohio State collected food, bed linens, and $400 worth of Home Depot gift certificates. There are other groups presently collecting cleaning kit supplies. We also have a couple generous individual donors who I want to thank especially as they have allowed us to pay the expenses of groups going down to work. One generous soul bought us a trailer to use today! Which he will be using to haul all that stuff down next week ;-)

This is VERY inspiring work! I see the Spirit at work in everything you do!

A new pressure has surfaced that demands increased volunteer support of the effort in New Orleans. The St. Bernard Parish government, where we do most of our work, has given homeowners a date of August 29 to be started cleaning out their houses. The "or else" hasn't been announced yet, but there are hundreds of work orders not fulfilled waiting for us at the school and Tammany Oaks. If you can put together a summer mission trip the host organizations are very eager to get work done before the end of August to help homeowners meet that deadline.

Several Trips are set and ready to join:

1. We have a team of Westerville south IB students heading to Louisiana next Wednesday, June 7, returning on the 14th.
2. The next scheduled trip is New Life, Canal Winchester who will be going led by Mark and Becky (Team 3) on July 1.
3. July 8th, Alum Creek CofC and Linworth UMC youth groups are going together. We need an experienced volunteer to lead that trip (be a guide).
4. There is a trip scheduled for July 16 which is to be a Westerville Christian father son trip, but others are welcome to go along.
5. August 5, Grace Point church is sponsoring a mission trip. I'll be presenting to that congregation June 18th.
   

If you are scheduled on a summer trip, be prepared to be a first responder if a new disaster strikes. We will work with our partners to send in help as soon as it is safe.

I have some numbers and metrics to report on the Hilltop effort who we've been partnering with all spring. From January through April, that effort spent $81,000 feeding and organizing volunteers; aproximately 1600 of them. The cost of $50 per volunteer per week is reflected in their new request for a donation of $10 per day per volunteer to help cover expenses. Outside fundraising would help eleviate the need for this expense, but preperations for the next disaster take capital too. Servants Unite is considering whether to pay this donation for our volunteers, but needs to increase fundraising

That is a good investment. That $81,000 allowed the volunteers to clean out over 400 houses! That's around $200 per house. With $100,000 left, the end of August would be the end of the effort without more capital flowing in.

I hope this news finds you all well and ask you to pray for this effort and help corporeally where you can. Thanks for making Servants Unite grow and shine!

John McGuire
Servants Unite