Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Hurricane Disaster
Relief Kits
This summer the Bishop of Beaumont is promoting a good
idea and the organizational skills to make it so throughout the diocese: small,
easily transportable plastic bags of needful items for anyone displaced by hurricanes,
fires, tornadoes, or other disasters.
And in this part of the world, all of us have been
displaced, and will be again. Hurricanes and flooding have sent us on the road
or onto the boats, sometimes without a known destination. Some of us have bank
accounts and credit cards and places to go; many don’t. And the places we go or
the places we where we are isolated might not have the systems in place or the
supplies to accomplish transactions. You can’t buy a band-aid or a razor or a
towel if alligators are swimming through the muck where the grocery store used
to be.
Many churches and other service organizations provide
food, cooked when possible and as boxes of field rations when not, portable
shower units, tents, tarps, first-aid, and other necessities for life as refugees.
The bishop’s throw-and-go (No, don’t actually throw it;
you’d hurt someone) bags of non-food (and thus non-perishable) items are
adjuncts, something to be handed out through existing services or by themselves
as necessary. He has asked every family in the diocese to package a standard
but flexible list of items sealed in a waterproof plastic bag to contribute to
disaster relief. These kits are then stored in spaces in churches and
rectories, ready for immediate giveaway to those headed to safety. The list:
One bath towel
Two wash cloths
Three bars of bath soap
One hairbrush
Three disposable razors
One can of shaving cream
Two toothbrushes
One tube of toothpaste
One stick of deodorant
One container of skin lotion
One small general-purpose first-aid kit
One package of ball point pens
One container of multi-purpose anti-bacterial ointment
One small LED flashlight
Many of these items wouldn’t require a new purchase. Most
of us have good old towels and wash clothes that can be freshly laundered and
packed. After all, someone under a bridge trying to get the kid cleaned up
while the storm is blowing isn’t going to be picky about a new label and a
brand name.
If you haven’t got three bars of soap, one would do, or
maybe a couple of those little plastic bottles of shampoo pinched from the
Holiday Inn.
Some things, such as hairbrushes and toothbrushes, ought
to be new. Sure you can boil the germs and boogers and cooties out of them,
but, still, new is better.
I saw one of these throw-and-go kits stocked, but on the
list the first-aid kit notation was lined out and replaced with a box of
band-aids. That’s a practical substitution.
Tiny little flashlights can now be bought cheaply by the
dozen and they are so useful. We have so many illuminated gadgets in our houses
that not until a power failure do we realize how dark the night is for us
diurnal creatures. A flashlight is not only something for helping us see, but
to be seen by – in addition to our voices, difficult to locate in the darkness,
the rescuers can also see a light for determining location.
What shoulda / coulda / woulda been on the list is certainly
a topic for discussion, but a sine qua non is that the distribution and
handling of any one throw-and-go kit shouldn’t require a crew or any strength. Putting these together is something all of us
can do through our churches, volunteer organizations, schools, youth groups,
and businesses.
In a disaster even the best and strongest among us cannot
accomplish all that needs to be done. The little throw-and-go kits are a small contribution
that anyone can make, and make now, before they are needed.
Those who will use them – because there will be hurricanes
and evacuations - won’t know your name, nor will the bishop, but God certainly
will.
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