Disaster Response


Disasters happen, but being prepared makes recovery far easier.  Below are two resources every local church should know about.

If your church wants to create its own disaster plan, go to the UCC National Disaster Resources website and check out the Local Church Disaster Response Resources. Included is the UCC Local Church Disaster Preparedness and Planning Guidea complete guide for a local church to create their own plan.

When disaster strikes our neighbors, how do we help? Training is the key. Local church teams of disaster responders may self-train by using the new online resource created for this purpose. It is a step-by-step training manual: www.communityarise.com/index.htm.

If you have a trained team that is able to respond to a disaster event, let us know and we will connect them to the right people in order to go to work where needed.

Christina Schoenwetter and Michael Magnus
Wisconsin Conference Disaster Response Coordinators

Disaster Response Stories

Grace Congregational UCC, Two Rivers, September 1, 2016 – What started as a request from a Two Rivers Grace UCC congregation member to gather a few items of clothing to send to his
friend in flood-ravaged Baton Rouge, LA blossomed into a city wide mission project to send aid to Louisianans!  Here’s their story:

Two Rivers mission6 crop

Two Sundays ago, a man named Buddy Davidson who is a member of our congregation, approached me just before worship to ask if he could make an announcement at the beginning of church. He was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and said that the night before he was talking to his good friend down there about the flooding and what people needed (food and clothes, said the friend), and Buddy had the thought that he could box up a few clothes and send it to his friend.

So he asked me if he could ask the church for help in this – to clean out their closets for the folks in Louisiana. He made an announcement that morning.  Then church members were calling and asking for details, so we put in on Facebook. Word spread – other churches and businesses in town asked to solicit donations too, and an article in the local paper has brought even more people this week.

The response has been WAY more than we anticipated, which is crazy and wonderful. Needless to say, we are way past the point of Buddy’s original plan to mail a box of things to his friend!  We’re talking about somehow trucking it down there, though we are still working out the details.

We have a stated deadline of this Sunday, and more and more just keeps coming! We’re blown away.

This is the article that was in the local paper: Two Rivers church responds to Louisiana flooding.

Share your church’s mission and ministry stories by sending them here. Photos are appreciated, too.


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