Leo Mork of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, says there’s a process for volunteers at the American Red Cross: “Day one, you’re strangers; day two, you’re friends; day three, you’re family.”
More than 30 “family members” came to Greenwood on Wednesday to helping those displaced by rapidly rising flood waters.
The Red Cross has set up a 180-bed shelter at North Greenwood Baptist Church’s Recreational Outreach Center.
On Saturday morning, nine women evacuees were staying at the shelter. They were not made available for interviews without official approval.
Mork, a member of the Grantwood Area Chapter of the Red Cross, serves as the feeding supervisor at the center. A volunteer for the past 12 years, he said the team responds when called.
“If they call early, we’re gone that day. If they call later in the day, we’re gone tomorrow,” he said.
His colleagues in the kitchen on Saturday included Joe Hawkins of Anderson, S.C., a volunteer since 2001; Carolyn Miles of Waco, Texas, a volunteer since 2011; and Susie Dubler of Canandaigua, N.Y., a volunteer since 2005.
On Saturday, the team was doing what people in the military call “sweating out the mission” — waiting out the calm before the storm.
This team was on a flight of 47 volunteers that came in. In all, some 600 Red Cross volunteers will be in the state helping with flood relief.
Ken Sandy, a Red Cross volunteer from western Michigan, serves as the client shelter manager at North Greenwood. He said people are beginning to hear of the availability of the Greenwood shelter.
“The word is being spread. We talked with the mayor of Greenville. We’ve talked to several of the clergy of Greenville,” he said.
Sandy said the Greenwood shelter is fully equipped.
“By that I mean full food service, three meals a day, security, a full medical staff — staffed around the clock with nurses. Mental health and special care assistance is also available,” he said.
Sandy said the volunteers at the shelter will work for two to three weeks before being rotated out.
The Greenwood shelter will remain open as long as necessary, he said. It can be reached at any time at (571) 205-3331.
Early this week, a mobile kitchen, furnished by the Southern Baptist Convention and staffed by church volunteers, is expected to arrive at the center, Mork said. The mobile kitchen can serve 2,000 meals a day.
The convention will prepare the food, and the Red Cross will purchase it and distribute it at the shelter and by an Emergency Response Vehicle to remote locations, Mork said.
The vehicle is already at the shelter.
Food is being provided for evacuee families in advance of the kitchen’s arrival, Sandy said.
n Contact Bob Darden at bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
