Volunteers from Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) are on the ground in tornado-ravaged areas of Kentucky, focusing on cleanup as well as plans for a long-term response. In the Mayfield area—badly damaged during the Dec. 10 tornado—MDS volunteers...
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Story by Kalea Anderson for NBC WSPD 6 Local News MAYFIELD, KY — Some in Mayfield are moving on to the rebuilding phase after an EF-4 tornado ripped through neighborhoods. Now, thanks to help from Homes and Hope for Kentucky, they don’t have...
Blue tarp after blue tarp. That’s the view for weary residents in the city of Lake Charles, Louisiana, after they’ve been through disaster on top of disaster. Hurricane Laura made landfall on Aug. 27, 2020 just south of Lake Charles, as a...
After volunteering for Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) for nearly 17 years, this year Cheryl Mast is thankful to be on the receiving end. Mast coordinates outdoor education programs for the 360-acre Amigo Centre in southern Michigan, which offers...
The sixth grader tightened the grip on her purse as I approached. The purse was made of pink overlapping sequins. At its top, a unicorn’s horn emerged. A strap secured it around her neck. Amongst this group of older white men, it provided...
Growing up in a farm family, Randy Short spent a week serving with Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) in Kentucky after his senior year of high school. After that, he served with MDS each winter for three or four months. “After we were married, it...
Michael Bering paused in the shade on his back patio in LaPlace, Louisiana, chatting for a few minutes with his brother, Edward, who has come by to lend him some moral support as he copes with the havoc Hurricane Ida wreaked on his home. Michael’s...
Sixty-seven-year-old Pamela Haskin was sweeping, cleaning, and sweating up a storm inside a hurricane-damaged home in LaPlace, Louisiana. She’d traveled from her home in western Pennsylvania several days before, but still seemed a little surprised...
Philip Hirtle pulled moldy drywall, soggy carpet and bedraggled belongings out of his mother-in-law’s home, sweating in the early October Louisiana Gulf Coast heat, hauling pickup truckload after truckload to the growing pile at end of the long,...
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