Upcoming Trips and Projects

Our assistance will continue to be needed in Northern Ohio for some time, specifically in Bucyrus, but may expand to other areas as needed. Volunteer opportunities are available most weekends and during the week and accommodations are available for those traveling some distance to work there.

November 11-November 17, Team 29 will be working in Chalmette, near New Orleans. We will leave after church Sunday from Westerville Christian. An organizational meeting will be held there as well next Tuesday, October 16 at 6:30pm. Here is where to find us:

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Christmas time trips have been very popular the last two years of Katrina relief work. I am planning two tentative trips for the week before Christmas and the week between Christmas and New Years. One would leave around Saturday, December 15 and return Saturday, December 22. The other would leave Wednesday morning, December 26 and return on January 1 as we did last year.

Spring Break can be amazing this year! All these Columbus area schools, maybe more, are off the same week in 2008, March 22-30:

Columbus, Hilliard, Dublin, Worthington, Olentangy, Westerville, Big Walnut, Gahanna, South Western, Grandview Heights, Hamilton, Groveport, Canal Winchester, Pickerington, Bexley, Whitehall, and Tree of Life.

Only 3 districts adjoining Columbus are not off this week:

• Upper Arlington is off the week before.
• New Albany-Plain is the following week.
• Reynoldsburg is April 5-13.

I’d like to plan a massive youth oriented trip to New Orleans or Bayou La Batre for that week. We could conceivably send hundreds of volunteers! The work would be reconstruction of houses, community centers, and other efforts to support churches and rehabitation of houses in the area still recovering from Katrina.

Special challenges for youth trips like this involve:

• Getting enough youth sponsors to go.
• Having enough skilled adults to keep the kids productive.
• Coordinating transportation.

To put such a trip together, I’ll need help from you to publicize and staff the trip. We’ll also need to be recruiting adults with construction skills and tools to help make this trip productive for the kids.

Please prayerfully consider how you can arrange your schedule to support any of these activities.

To inquire about, or join any of these trips, please call me or email me at the link on the right of the blog.

Cajun Dinner Fundraiser

So if you're missing the food of the gulf coast, have a hankering for fellowship, and want to support our next trip, you've gotta come to Westerville Christian Church, Friday Nov 2 at 6:30 pm in the FLC for Cajun Fest. Our address is 471 College Avenue, Westerville, Ohio 43081.

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Proceeds from this dinner will help to cover the expenses for Team 29 who will leave November 11 and return November 17. Please see the posting on Upcoming Trips for more information.

You can print a sign to put up at your church, work, or around your community and you can print a bulletin insert that you can find here.

Hope you can join us!

My Status Update

I am so pleased God continues to let me work on this project. It is unbelievably fulfilling serving Him, all of you, and the storm victims we've been helping the last two years. Our successes are all His and any good we do is only a reflection of Christ working through us, but I am so grateful He chooses to let me take part. I have met the most amazing, yet common people I never knew existed within the faith community or anywhere else.

As most reading this know, I began adjusting my life to focus full time on Servants Unite and part time IT consulting last February. I am not drawing compensation from the organization, but soliciting regular donations to help cover my family's expenses. The complete story is on this blog posting.

Since then, I have been receiving monthly funding from one church and two individuals. This funding with the addition of an amount from another church is covering only 25% of our expenses. I have made some of the other 75% consulting and Melinda has contributed substantially from her part time job, but we have still invested over $25,000 in personal savings to meet our daily needs. With spring break and summer relief work completed and Bucyrus work stabilizing into an ongoing operation, I am focusing more on consulting, but that takes away from the time I can spend on building Servants Unite and organizing or ongoing efforts.

I know what we can accomplish and have a vision of what this organization can be. Every little investment we have made has yielded enormous kingdom dividends. Those of you who know me personally know of the passion I have for getting us there. I am constantly reminded, however, that I can't do it alone. Right now we need a couple dozen people to help expand this ministry and I could really use that other 75% to cover my expenses and begin replenishing my reserves.

Your business helps me as well. I and others I work with through Franklin Computer Services can handle any Information Technology needs that your company or church may have. By utilizing my professional services, you are supporting my ability to focus on building this mission.

It is my prayer and hope that more of you can step forward to fill leadership positions in Servants Unite, help in fundraising, and personally contribute to help me focus even more on this job.

For more information on funding my efforts or helping to grow Servants Unite, please email me.

Thanks for your support.

Non Profit Status Approved!!!

We received a letter from the IRS yesterday stating that they have approved our request for non-profit status under section 501(c)3 of the internal revenue code! This is really a major triumph. Though it may seem basic and expected, the implications are huge for the growth of our organization. It qualifies us for more funding and stretches our funding further.

We are allowed to work under the assumption that this approval would come and have been doing so. I can now tell you for certain though now that your charitable donations, both monetary and in-kind, made directly to Servants Unite are deductible from your taxes. I can also tell you that this makes us accountable to the IRS as well as you when we allocate resources.

This is especially critical as our general funds are near $0 after our summer trips and the Bucyrus response.

This means we can accept corporate donations. Most corporations will only give to a 501(c)3 approved organization. You can help promote donations to Servants Unite from your employer.

We can accept employee donations and corporate matching funds through payroll deduction at your employer. Several volunteers have been waiting on this approval to donate through their employer. Please check with your Human Resources department. If you have payroll deducted donations to charitable organizations presently with your employer, you should be able to redirect some or all of this giving to Servants Unite. The process is not complicated in most organizations. Generally our tax ID number and some information about the organization (www.servantsunite.org) are all that is required.

This status also makes it more attractive to churches, mission groups, and other non-profits to support us financially. Please help make your church leadership and mission organizations aware of this update. We can use steady funding as we have functioned to date on one time gifts and special collections. We also need to get commitments from churches for special collections or reserve funds to finance our next response.

You can always give to us personally. Again, your monetary or in-kind (stuff) donation is tax deductible. You'll be getting calls from lots of unknown solicitors from now through Christmas. Please keep in mind that these phone solicitors frequently keep 80-90% of your donation. Donating to Servants Unite will assure that 100% of your donation goes to a worthy cause. You can donate through the Paypal link on the web (which will eat 2% of your donation), or mail a check.

As we've seen we can get a lot more mileage out of donations than the traditional and much larger recipients of corporate funding who have enormous overhead. Nearly 100% of funds donated to Servants Unite go directly to our mission with very small administrative costs and no salaries.

Finally, our tax exempt status saves us money when we buy materials and equipment for use in our work. I'll work on getting the appropriate information to vendors we purchase from.

Thanks for your continued support!

Servants Unite!

Bucyrus Work Proceeding

We're ready for volunteers and project work in Bucyrus again. Here's the update from Crawford County EMA I received today.

Great success this past week. The call center made some 250 calls the last few nights, FEMA has over 300 cases that they are in process of handing over or contacting individuals. A large cleanup was completed last weekend by a Lutheran group out of New York. The paper just hit today with the front page reading residents are to call with damages. The article was not clear on who should call so we will be taking more calls for Case Workers over the next few days.

Case Workers have even been closing a handful of cases this week with simple purchases like a freezer of washer. It appears we will do another weekend of cleanup not sure how many cases we have at the moment. When you know you have people wanting to come give me a heads up and I will see what cases are open at the time for you. Deb McCoy is the Volunteer coordinator her home number 419-689-9799, she will be able to coordinate lodging and cases. We will have work orders by end of this week for which we will complete for each case and will be used to track progress of residents. It is fully working now just coordination of the work as it comes in. It does not appear that the cases will hit all at once as they just keep coming through steady like 5-8 a day.

Thanks,

Tim Flock
EMA Director
Crawford County

You can contact Deb McCoy directly if you choose, but I need to keep track of the volunteer hours we are spending there and I have resources available to reimburse you for any materials that are needed.

Housing is available at Camp Michael, near Bucyrus.

To volunteer or ask questions, please send me an email or call my cell at 614-404-8610.