CDS has two teams of volunteers serving in North Carolina. The four volunteers in “Team Fletcher” have been serving children and families at a shelter in Fletcher, N.C., since Thursday, Oct. 3. This response is in partnership with the Red Cross. When they arrived, the shelter housed 300 people, and there was a boil water
As media report that the death toll from Hurricane Helene has topped 200–with more than half of the deaths in western North Carolina–Brethren Disaster Ministries and Children’s Disaster Services (CDS) have begun active responses to aid survivors of the storm and its aftermath.
Brethren Disaster Ministries as well as local emergency authorities are strongly advising those who would like to help out NOT to travel to the areas affected by Hurricane Helene, while the roads are not safe and search and rescue is still happening.
However, here are opportunities to help from home:
We have been hearing of a storm and need at the Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria) refugee camp in Cameroon, called Camp Minawao. The new EYN director of Disaster Relief Management, Bitrus Duwara, investigated and found out the following:
In April there is a meat canning project that brings volunteers together in Pennsylvania. The Church of the Brethren receives part of the finished product. Our Material Resources staff recently shipped three pallets, or nearly 7,000 pounds of the canned meat, to California, destined for Mexico.
During the first half of June, Children’s Disaster Services (CDS) volunteers have continued to provide care centers for children during what has been identified as the most active tornado season in the United States since 2017. Most recently, CDS volunteers have worked in Arkansas.
Brethren Disaster Ministries has directed grants from the Church of the Brethren’s Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF) to send $100,000 to the work of Church World Service (CWS) with Ukrainian refugees, $30,000 to l’Eglise des Freres au Congo (Church of the Brethren in the Democratic Republic of Congo or DRC) to provide food aid following flooding, and $7,500 to support an epidemic relief program of ASIGLEH, the Church of the Brethren in Venezuela.
Marcos Inhauser, who serves in leadership of Igreja da Irmandade (the Church of the Brethren in Brazil), sent the following prayer request to the Global Mission office of the Church of the Brethren. Inhauser has been named to help lead a program to train pastors and community leaders to assist those affected with pastoral care.
The staff of Brethren Disaster Ministries have directed a large grant of $225,000 from the Church of the Brethren’s Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF) to extend the Nigeria Crisis Response for another year. The grant is given in conjunction with a plan to phase out the program over the next three years, created in collaboration with the Disaster Relief Management Team of Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria).
In addition to the large grant of $225,000 that extends the Nigeria Crisis Response program through 2024, the Church of the Brethren’s Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF) has provided grants to various countries including a grant that will help start a new South Sudan Crisis Recovery Initiative with staff from Global Mission.
