My third mission trip to south Louisiana -- to the UMCOR depot

Bayou Teche - Google images.

This is one boundary of the UMCOR Sager-Brown campus

 

                Once again, the missioners from Jacksonville United Methodist Church asked me to be one of their 12 to travel to Baldwin, Louisiana, the home of the Sager-Brown UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief) Depot. It is one of two such depots; the other is located in Salt Lake City. Imagine the largest metal warehouse you can, and add more space to it.

                After an 8-hour drive from Jacksonville (AR) UMC on a Sunday, we arrived safely, were assigned rooms, attended an orientation meeting, then enjoyed a team meal of Italian soup, French bread, salad, lemonade and cookies—all brought on the trip by our very industrious and well-organized team leader, Joyce White. (Each of the 12 had paid $300+ to “volunteer” and to pay for gas and food down there and back.)

 

                Monday morning after meeting the other teams and the staff and eating a sumptuous breakfast, we adjourned to Jubilee Hall for a Safe Sanctuary presentation. While we were there, the sky darkened to pitch black. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed and it rained. We weren’t in danger, no sirens were heard, but it was an eerie feeling to look through the blinds at 9 a.m. and see nothing.
 

                We stayed in that room until the storm had moved east toward New Orleans. Then we proceeded to our reasons for being there—our work stations.
 

              Our work schedule at the UMCOR depot was from 8:15 – 11:30, and from 1 – 3:30. The country of Jordan had asked for 7,000 health kits for refugees. That’s what five 6-person tables worked on all week in the large, large area of the depot.
 

            People in the sewing room were busy attaching handles to school bags and cutting/sewing baby gowns for layette kits.
 

          Another group was emptying moldy cleaning buckets (formerly “flood buckets”) where something had leaked while in storage. They were refilled with items having a more stable shelf life.

I worked on health kits that had been sent from local churches. Many of them, however, failed to follow the directions, OR the directions had been changed since they were packed.

          Our job was to open each kit, check on the correctness of the items, change them out where needed, then repack. The kits were to include a hand towel, washcloth, comb (with at least 6 inches of teeth), either nail file or clippers (no toenail clippers, no emery boards),a bar of soap (except for Ivory and Jergens, which had too much moisture and sometimes melted), a toothbrush, and six regular-sized band-aids. Wrapped tightly in the towel, these items were pushed into a gallon freezer bag, the air squeezed out to a near-vacuum, then sealed and placed in a laundry basket to be taken to the packers by runners.

      The week’s kits--repacked, boxed, taped, labeled and sealed into shrink-wrapped containers added up to 6500—not bad for 30 folks’ work in four days—an average of 216 kits per person. In addition, we became friends with other UMs from western Oklahoma, Plano and Wylie, Texas, and our own colleagues from El Dorado.

                This is my only volunteer activity. But I’ll go as often as I get the chance. I consider raising a grandson to age 25 my long-range and life-long volunteer work.