My husband and I have volunteered with this wonderful group of trained disaster responders after the floods in S.E. MN last year and the tornado in Hugo, MN this year. If you can find a day or so or you know someone who can (your teenager’s softball team, maybe?) see the contact info below.
I ask forgiveness if this message is inappropriate here, but I know you to be a generous community. You do not need to hold any particular faith to join this group. What follows is the message I got today.
NECHAMA UPDATE
It has been a very busy few weeks for NECHAMA in Iowa. We have had dozens of volunteers who have helped many flood victims. To date, our work as been in Mason City and Waverly. The Mason City community has welcomed us, please click on the links below of the Mason City Globe Gazette to view a short interview with NECHAMA’s Operations Coordinator Dan Hoefts and an editorial about NECHAMA and acts of kindness.
http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2008/06/19/news/local/doc4859d4ba04bba094062131.txt
http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2008/06/19/opinion/editorials/doc4859d68a11caf959722010.txt
The rest of the summer looks very busy for NECHAMA. We expect to continue our work in Iowa through August. In addition to Iowa, the State of Wisconsin also received flood damage and the city of Milwaukee has asked NECHAMA for help. Seth Gardner is meeting with city officials on Wednesday, July 2nd to see where NECHAMA is most needed. Please watch for updates on the Wisconsin deployments later in the day on Wednesday. This is a great opportunity for NECHAMA to extend it’s footprint to the Milwaukee and Chicago areas. Please forward this e-mail to anyone you may know in that region for potential volunteers.
Thank you to all of our volunteers who have already helped and for those who are still wanting to go on a deployment, please pick your dates and contact Amy Cytron acytron@nechama.org and she will help organize your deployment.