Pratt City: Still in Need of Your Help!

Jamie, Wade, Javacia, Cindy, and I volunteered on Saturday at the Pratt City Tornado Relief Center. 

We checked customers in and took them around to the various rooms, gathering the supplies that they needed.

(Thank you so much to Jamie for taking some awesome photos for us.)

It was a blessing to be able to do something – small as it may have been – to help those so decimated by April 27th.

We got to talk in depth with the directors and see the inside view of what is going on, almost four months later.

They still have hundreds of needy, displaced people coming through their doors every week.

Yet, so many in the world have forgotten the pain that still permeates our state – volunteers are significantly down, as are donations.

Pratt City was decimated in the storms, entire blocks completely wiped away.

Yet there is hope.

They are trying to make their comeback, but they need our help – just as we would need their help if it had been our neighborhood instead of theirs.

If you can give, the relief center would gladly take your donations.  Especially for items like canned goods, paper products, batteries, diapers, brooms and mops.

If you can volunteer, they are always in need of more help!  The staff there have been volunteering tirelessly for months, so support for them to take a respite would be much appreciated. 

They are located at 1517 Hibernian Street, off of Highway 78 directly after the walking bridge over the road.

They are open Wednesdays through Saturdays every week.  Call 791-7562 to let them know what day you can help – any amount of time would be appreciated!

Also, they are having an exciting opportunity on August 23rd for which they need many volunteers:  Women’s clothier Alfred Dunner is sending a delivery of new clothes to Temple Emmanuel in 5 Points South to be distributed to Tornado Survivors.

They need 40 volunteers anytime between the hours of 9 AM and 7 PM on the 23rd to help distribute these supplies, as well as some volunteers on 8/22 to help set up.  If you can help at any time on either of these days, please contact regclark (at) bellsouth (dot) net.

On Using Your Influence.

Today I visited my third destroyed Alabama town.

I thought that as I exposed myself more to the devastation of our state, I would become more used to it and less affected by the destruction, but I was wrong. With each successive visit, I've become more deeply saddened for our state.

Henegar was my first visit. Pratt City was my second. Today was Pleasant Grove.

Two sights from today's visit will be forever burned in my mind:

Two elderly couples, gingerly picking around the rubble that used to be their houses, looking for belongings (on the hill in the far background of this image out of respect for their privacy):

And a blue bow on a mailbox, perfectly intact, in front of a house that was not nearly as untouched.

The knowledge that that could have easily been my baby had the storms been just a few miles east is horrific to imagine and compels me to pray that this baby is miraculously safe.

I simultaneously feel emotionally exhausted, wanting to step away for a while, and like I must do so much more - because there is so much that needs to be done.

National Media quit covering our tragedy two days after it happened – A Royal Wedding took the headlines, then the death of Osama Bin Laden sealed the death of our news coverage.

But we as bloggers still have our voice. We can get the message out to the world that Alabama still needs help, and that all of us working together can make a difference.

So I urge you – one blogger to another – make your influence count! Do what you can to help our neighbors that have lost everything!

I highly recommending serving somewhere if you haven’t already, and then showing your readers how they can help.

There are so many opportunities for service, and so many needs to be met. I have personally been overwhelmed by my blog reader’s desire to help – they have responded amazingly to all of the opportunities I have given them.

One very practical option you can offer your readers to help is ordering off of the Christian Service Mission’s Amazon Wish List . One of our brilliant Alabama Bloggers, Beth from Unskinny Boppy, set it up. It’s a great way to meet the immediate needs of the moment, and know that 100% of your donations are going straight to relief efforts.

There are many options out there, so give your readers different ways to help. Show them how their funds are going to help immediate needs, and let them (and you) get involved in serving our state – because we need every hand on deck right now!

Yes, Alabama has come a long way in a few weeks – but the distance we still have to travel will require statewide – and countrywide – dedication.

A Few Notes about Tornado Distaster Relief...

1. Instead of meeting to eat for our next #AlaBlogMeet, I want to organize a blogger work day to help with tornado relief. We can either help sort through donations, help deliver donations, help prepare and give out meals to relief workers, or help with the cleanup. I'm thinking a Saturday in Mid to Late May would work best.

a) Would you participate if you were available?

b) What date would work best for you?

c) What would you recommend that we do to help?

2. I rarely cross my two blog's paths, but since we're all bloggers here, I highly encourage you to educate your readers on how to help with the tornado relief, and specifically how to use Social Media to meet specific and immediate needs. I wrote a post on my other blog about that very thing here - please help in spreading the word about how to help by writing about it on your blogs!

3. Kristen Heptinstall of al.com is compiling lists of blogger's responses to the storm. If you've written about the tornadoes, tweet her at @KristenHeptin.

Friday Link-Up: Ways to Help.

(Photo from al.com)


I, as well as all of you I'm sure, am completely overwhelmed by the devastation of our state. There are so many needs, but thankfully, there are also so many ways to help. Our Southern Hospitality really shows itself strong when disaster strikes. Seeing everyone pitch in to make a difference really is the break of light in the clouds.

It's wonderful that there are SO many options to help, because some are obviously easier and more accessible for different ones of us than others. I've been tweeting and retweeting opportunities and needs as often as possible to help get the word out, but instead of posting a link-up for "Best Post of the Week" this week, I thought it might be helpful to have a centralized place to link these options up. So if you've written a post about ways to help or know a website that has opportunities to help, please link up below so that we can all help spread the word about options to help those so severely affected in our state.

Thanks!!