Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) has welcomed Michele WhiteEagle as the new Region 4 board chair. The region includes Arizona, California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington, as well as Alaska and Hawaii. WhiteEagle is MDS’s first female regional board...
“We told ourselves, before we started, we don’t want to be doing anything we wouldn’t want the media to see if they dropped in announced.” That’s how Peter Thiessen, co-director with his wife, Susan, for the Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS...
As Hurricane Laura ripped through Cameron, Louisiana in late August, homes built by Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) volunteers stood up well to the storm’s punishing 150-mph/241-km/h winds. MDS has a long history of helping residents in that area...
Reflections in the wake of Hurricane Laura Carl Dube penned the following reflections after a long drive back from Cameron, Louisiana, to his home in Michigan. Dube was in the area assessing damage from Hurricane Laura, a deadly and destructive...
Fifteen years ago, if there were three or four major disasters for Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) to respond to, that was considered a very busy year. Today, that number has “tripled or even quadrupled” says executive director Kevin King. “We...
Photos by Mary Cottingham | for STC The Coastal Bend Disaster Recovery Group (CBDRG), along with its many partners, broke ground on “Tierra de Esperanza” (Land of Hope) on Sept. 23. Twenty-three new homes will soon be built on this 3...
Two homes in the mountains of West Virginia are nearly ready for occupancy, four years after floodwaters decimated communities and upended lives there. MDS volunteers built the 1,000-foot modular homes by working inside a warehouse tucked in the...
This summer, 46 congregations in Canada received money from the MDS Canada Spirit of MDS Fund to help them serve their communities during the pandemic. Funds were used for things like food, rent, personal protective equipment, to help seniors...
As Lawrence Hurst was talking to family members who farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he learned some of them had such large crops of silage they weren’t sure what to do with the extra. At the same time, he knew there were small farmers only a few...
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