Nick Todaro, Reporter
09-22-2008
The crews from Rolling Hills Ministries went from keeping bellies full in Acadiana to tending to the hungry in the southwest corner of the state.David Abernathy, ministry director, was in Ruston last week receiving updates on the Ruston unit’s work in Sulphur, where they were deployed for Hurricane Ike after two weeks on the ground around Lafayette and Lake Charles for Hurricane Gustav. The unit doled out 19,102 meals while in Lafayette alone.
“We’re on week four of this,” Abernathy said, adding that between the two hurricanes, the group tapped between 100 and 200 volunteers from the Ruston area.
A group of 29 Rolling Hills volunteers rotated out of the Sulphur area Thursday, Abernathy said. Beginning Friday, a team of half Rolling Hills volunteers and half of volunteers from Mississippi’s feeding teams rotated in to relieve them. The group will use Rolling Hills’ equipment and feeding unit site.
“This way, we give some of our volunteers a rest before we go in again,” he said. “Some of them have already been down to south Louisiana twice.”
The unit has absorbed $5,000-$10,000 of cost in running the feeding operation — food is provided by the Red Cross, but equipment maintenance and breakdown repairs are all out-of-pocket for the Ruston organization.
Gawain Green, the “Blue Hat,” or team leader, on the ground in Sulphur, described that area as “pretty damaged,” but said the team was well-positioned in an area saved from much of flooding.
“The water came all the way up to Lake Charles,” he said. “We saw sailboats up in the canal where the I-10 bridge is over Lake Charles. The storms surge went that far in-land.
“We had a feeding line out of the truck there at the church, and we also had distribution through about eight other vehicles in other parts south into Cameron Parish.”
At one point, the unit was cranking out 7,000-9,000 meals per day, with the most in one day sitting at 9,200, Green said. He said what may not be immediately apparent is the cooking effort in such an undertaking takes rising before the sun.
“We start our morning way before daylight — the last meal is done by 4:30 p.m. for the evening, and that’s even with distributing two meals per day. We’re cooking under flood lights before the sun ever strikes,” Green said.
He stressed that the unit can use volunteers to take part in the effort.
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