Marion Cleanup

Mission Accomplished doesn't really describe the day. There are probably a few yards left untouched. One we know of that is filled with the remains of 2 trees is waiting on the insurance adjuster. The town of Marion, however, was quite a different place by this afternoon compared to when I first went up yesterday.

Eleven of us worked through the day on approximately 12 yards for residents. My family and 6 volunteers from Mt. Sterling Nazarene, Katrina veterans as well, had a great day of fellowship, service, and chain saws :-)

David took some pics of our last site which you can see here.

The town residents have cleared an amazing amount of brush and stacked it at the curb for pickup. While I was originally concerned about a lack of volunteers this morning, I was amazed and impressed at how fast all this was done. After Monday, there may be more requests through the Senior Center and we may need some volunteers a couple evenings this week for that.

I know God will provide what is needed and I'm grateful we got to go and serve after this storm. I am concerned, though that when it appears we are needed it is difficult to gather the volunteers together for local relief. I'm interested in your ideas and feedback on how we can make such a response more fruitful.

Look for more updates over the next couple days as to what additional help will be needed.

Marion pictures from Friday

I put up a gallery of the parks and streets of Marion that we need to clean up here.

Cleanup Help Needed in Marion, Ohio this weekend

Your help is needed in Marion Ohio this weekend. A strong thunderstorm passed through Marion Thursday evening causing wide spread damage and killing one resident. I surveyed the area this morning and met with Mayor Jack Kellog, Safety Director Daniel Cobb, and the EMA director Harry Burdick. There is damage across the entire town, though some blocks are worse than others. There are still live wires, intermixed with branches, which Ohio Edison is working to repair in residential neighborhoods. They hope to complete that work by tomorrow afternoon.

The Mayor has asked us to begin by clearing brush from the city parks where there isn’t the risk of live electricity. We can then work into residential streets as we verify with Emergency Management that the electrical repair work has been completed.

Please contact me on my cell phone, 614-404-8610 if you plan on coming to work. I’ll need to know how many people you will bring and what tools you will have.

The First Church of the Nazarene downtown Marion is allowing us to use their parking lot for a staging area. We will begin meeting there at 7:00 am tomorrow, Saturday, August 11. The address is 233 West Church Street, Marion, Ohio 43302.

Volunteers can come to this location all morning for work assignments. Sunday’s plans will be made Saturday afternoon as we gauge the response from volunteers and the progress of our work. I will broadcast those via email and post our progress to the blog.

Work will consist of tree and brush removal to the curb and minor repairs to roofs and homes. We will not work on trees entangled or leaning on wires or structures as we risk doing more damage. We will leave those to the professionals.

We need crews with the following tools:

• Chain saws (with experienced adults in charge)
• Lopping sheers/pruners
• Bow saws
• Rakes
• Wheelbarrows
• 2 wheeled dollies (to move large logs to the curb)
• Light, open trailers
• Small tarps

Individuals should bring:

• Safety glasses
• Gloves
• Work boots, preferably with steel toes
• Ear plugs (for noisy chainsaws)
• Hats
• Sunscreen
• Drinking water

Again, this area is definitely in need of our services and for tomorrow, at least, I don’t believe we can send more people than we will keep very busy. There may also be specific work assignments to be completed evenings next week as requests come in through the Marion Senior Center and possibly other sources.

The weather forecast is great and the weekend is convenient for us all to go serve. Thanks in advance for your time and commitment to this work.

Servants Unite!

John McGuire
www.ServantsUnite.org
614-523-3996 home
614-404-8610 cel
MSN servantsunite@hotmail.com
AIM servantsunite