Reno County Volunteers in Texas

September 30

Hello Everyone –

Mary and I are heading home today! Our kitchen is quickly closing down feeding routes and will be completely shut down on Wednesday or Thursday of this week. We are heading to Houston to out-process and then flying out around 4 p.m.

Thank you all for your encouraging words. It helps to know there are people at home thinking about us.

My last few days here were great. We continued going to Kemah where they had lots of destruction and even found a few new areas of individuals who really needed our help. I’m sure going to miss Ivan the cockroach who has been scurrying along the floor of the shelter! ;) I’m praying that he didn’t crawl into my suitcase to travel back to Kansas with me.

I’m glad I had an opportunity to have this experience. It’s very humbling. Everyone will experience a devastating time in their life and it’s nice to know that among all of the craziness in the world there is an entire army of people in red to help when it’s needed.

I’m looking forward to taking a shower in my own bathroom with my own hair on the floor! When I get back I’ll send out more pics. See everyone when we get home!

– Megan Gottschalk-Hammersmith, Chapter Director, American Red Cross

September 27

It’s Saturday and I’m not sure how many days I’ve been here – they seem to be running together.

Today was a really good day! I stayed with the same ERV driver that I drove with yesterday and we picked up another girl from Maryland who rode on our third seat. We had a new route to Kemah, Texas. It is about 20 minutes from League and right along the Bay Area. We are supposed to be doing fixed feeding so we stopped at our assigned place and waited...and waited...and waited. Then we decided that it was not worth our time and packed up and decided to rove around the area.

What we found was a mixture of people of all income levels cleaning out their homes. Their homes had three and four feet of water in them and residents were clearing out their ruined belongings and placing them on the curbside. So our team made the decision that we were going to serve out of our ERV while we roved around. The residents were so grateful and all had story after story about how the hurricane affected their family, friends, and neighbors. They were tired and all were so grateful we were in the area.

We had one little boy in a very nice residential neighborhood come to our ERV and ask for three meals. He was probably about eight years old. He wanted to know if our food cost money. When we told him no, he was so happy and told us he was trying to do some odd jobs to help with money because there was no money left. His parents weren’t with him so we knew they didn’t know what he was up to but he was willing to come out and ask for food to help out his family.

We have found that the residents here are independent and many are not willing to ask for any help. Which makes our mission so much easier to deliver because we are not the agency who only helps the low income, we help everyone – even those who really don’t want to ask but when it is offered you just know that the little you are doing is making such a huge difference in their life.

It brings a little relief and lets them know that they are not alone. It was even good for the residents this evening because they were out around our vehicle visiting with one another, asking how everyone was and you could tell that a few had not been checked on by neighbors. So I felt good about today. I believe we are going back again tomorrow so stay tuned for Sunday.

The snorers are still going strong so I’m praying that my earplugs don’t give out on me for another couple of days. We went through a small town yesterday that had advertised an annual cockroach festival and Pastor Chuck from Grace Church told us that another small community down here holds an annual mosquito festival! I guess when you have mosquitos as big as birds and other bugs that are unidentifiable you should celebrate them!

I’ve attached a few pics of the community we were in today. Hope all is well at home and we’ll be home towards the middle of next week!

– Megan Gottschalk-Hammersmith, Chapter Director, American Red Cross

September 26

I hope everyone is doing well! I have been here in Texas since Sunday. We really didn’t get assigned out until Tuesday and after a little confusion and a few different assignments, Mary and I found ourselves packed in a van traveling to a community south of Houston called League, Texas.

We got in about 9 p.m. and checked in at the shelter. We are staying at a Baptist Church and for a shelter it’s got pretty nice accommodations. There are two rooms where people are sleeping. We probably have about 50 or so sleeping in our room. My only complaint is that I think we need to segregate the snorers from the non-snorers.

I had to make a couple of trips to Walgreens to purchase two different types of earplugs and sleeping pills to cover up the noise. I was going off of about two hours sleep and I was becoming unpleasant to be around. But what I have now seems to be working!

This DR seems to be running smoothly. We are serving about 10,000 meals out of our kitchen. We are now two weeks into it and it seems to be a fine oiled machine. Although there have been a fair amount of challenges for me and for the DR overall. We had not arrived yet but Tuesday there had been a death on the DR in our kitchen. There was an older gentleman who had been sleeping in his ERV outside the shelter who had a heart attack during the night and he passed away. His ERV partner had also been sleeping in the ERV. The partner got up to go to the showers and when he came back he found his partner. Everyone seems to be very professional about it and life had to go on. They have taken the ERV off duty and sent it home.

I have been riding with a crew delivering meals to a couple of different spots. We have dropped meals off in Liverpool where the community is feeding themselves and then in Santa Fe where we are doing fixed feeding. Both of those routes have been closed and tomorrow we are picking up a new route and going to Kemah which is west and south of here. Most of these spots we are feeding are small rural communities outside of Galveston and Houston who still do not have power.

The residents all seem to be coping as well as possible. The ones we have been to, citizens are coming out and asking to help serve and inquiring about what else they can do to help. We have talked to several who are staying with relatives here while they clean up what is left of their property in Galveston. Where we are at, we have seen mostly tree and fence damage. Although today I did notice a house with the roof over the garage destroyed.

Mary has been working on a separate ERV and we are catching each other in the evenings for a short while.

– Megan Gottschalk-Hammersmith, Chapter Director, American Red Cross

September 22

Mary and I met up with a volunteer from Kansas City and arrived in Fort Worth on Sunday. We spent the night in the staff shelter and today we have been going through assignment and training. We are supposed to get on the road to a small town with a kitchen set up just south of Galveston. We were able to snag a hotel room this evening where we are all enjoying soft beds, warm baths, and clean hair for one night before we become tent dwellers tomorrow and probably most of the time we are here.

The operation is running well; seems like the name of the game in Red Cross is to hurry up and wait, and hurry up and wait. But I know there are tired volunteers who have been out there that are going home and we will be replacing some of them. Since residents of Galveston and the other communities along the coast are going to be allowed back into the area soon, most of the kitchens and shelters that were located up north are now closing and opening in locations in the south.

Sounds like power is still out and the conditions in many of these communities are very bad. We are anxious to get on the road and get to real work, though. I will keep everyone posted. Steve Dahlman, our website host, is going to put the info on our website as I am able to relay. Not sure what communications I will have but am hoping at the very least some form of telephone.

Hope everyone is well; See you all when we get back!

– Megan Gottschalk-Hammersmith, Chapter Director, American Red Cross