Bucyrus Work Lining Up

I need 4 volunteers to work in Bucyrus tomorrow. The task will be helping Crawford County EMA to qualify requests for assistance and start to organize volunteer workers. This is not physical work and offers a lot of contact with storm victims. They have up to 840 requests for assistance, but need to gather considerably more information to begin prioritizing them and assigning volunteers to the task. More requests will be coming in. Call me to sign up for tomorrow at my cell phone, 614-404-8610. No such thing as too late.

I'll also need the same or replacement people for that task through the weekend and into next week. Please sign up for that via john@servantsunite.org. We will start out working in Emergency Management in the Crawford county Courthouse at this address.

I am looking for local churches to work out of and through. We want to work with a local church so the people we help know where to go for support when we are no longer there personally.

Specifically I need a local non-instrumental Church of Christ who will help distribute relief funds and supplies from relief organizations of that affiliation. Accounting for those donations would become a job for an elder of the church. Resources are available, but I need someone to take that responsibility.

We need to build cleaning kits to donate to victims. Here is the inventory I pirated from Nashville Disaster Relief. I recommend filling the bucket with the supplies covering it with a towel and holding it in place with a rubber band (or a lid if there is one).

• 5 Gallon Bucket
• Heavy Duty Hand Brush
• Heavy duty scrubbers (Brillo pad)
• Woolite
• Clorox cleanup
• Heavy duty cleaner (Degreaser)
• Sponges
• Playtex gloves
• Waterless hand gel
• Formula 409
  
• Pine Sol
• Comet
• Bathroom cleaner
• Soap
• Rags
• Flashlight & Batteries
• Dust Masks

EMA is asking for church organizations to serve meals for the community and volunteers. This could be distributed in the neighborhoods, and available at a church building or defined location.

Volunteers will need to come prepared with tools till we can get with a church and purchase some.

Volunteer coordinators are needed. These should be experienced volunteers from Katrina work who can give a week (or whatever) to lead day workers in demucking homes.

We are not really prepared for this financially. Our current funds are at $3,665.32. I'm working on getting funding for some of this from other disaster relief orgs, but Servants Unite will most likely incur some expenses in this. I am already purchasing magnetic vehicle signs, a display banner, and will need "yard signs" to advertise who volunteers or storm victims should contact in the affected area.

We will need some funds coming in quickly. You or your church can donate through the paypal link on the Servants Unite web site under "Supplies Needed". You can send checks to my address which is also on that page or deposit them directly to our account at Chase. I can give you that number over the phone if you need it. We are functioning under non-profit status applied for, but do not have an answer back from the IRS. This means that donations should be tax deductible, but I can't tell you it is guaranteed.

More updates from ground zero tomorrow.