CARTHAGE, Mo. ?
The impact of the massive tornado that hit Joplin more than six months ago was felt at the Carthage Crisis Center?s annual Thanksgiving Day dinner.
Brian Bisbee, Crisis Center executive director, said volunteers delivered over 150 meals to more than 100 homes, including homes in the FEMA mobile home parks across Missouri Highway 171 from the Joplin Regional Airport.
And among the nearly 150 volunteers who helped the Bisbees and their staff and volunteers put on this event were youth members of the St. Paul?s Lutheran Church in Jackson, Mo., in the southeast part of Missouri, who were spending a week helping tornado victims rebuild their homes.
?We wanted to help serve meals to people somewhere on Thanksgiving and Sue Stiegemeyer, one of our youth directors, searched for a place,? said Dave Crites, another director of the group. ?Marilyn (Bisbee, a co-director of the Crisis Center) said she would love to have us, so here we are.?
Matt Fluegge, a youth member of the group from Jackson includes six adults and 14 youth volunteers who planned to spend the week in Joplin.
He said a group from his church came and volunteered back in the summer and decided they wanted to come back.
?We were here this past August and all the kids wanted to come back, but we knew we would also be in school,? Fluegge said. ?Coming over the Thanksgiving holiday was a way to stay here for a week without missing as much school.?
Crites said young people from his church had made several trips to New Orleans to help with their rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, but they decided to come to Joplin after hearing about the tornado.
?We?ve been working with the Emanuel Lutheran Church in Joplin to help families rebuild,? he said.
As she packed boxes of food for delivery to homes, Adrienne Sladek, 19, Jackson, said she was glad to be here to help.
?This is awesome,? Sladek said. ?We got to come yesterday to help with food prep and talked with Marilyn about this place. She gave us a tour and told is they have women and families in one area and men in another area. This is such an awesome mission.
Brian Bisbee said all the food, including the turkeys and hams, was donated by various individuals and entities.
?We had about 60 volunteers yesterday and we probably have about 90 coming in today,? Bisbee said on Thursday. ?We turned away a number of people just because we wanted to make sure people had things to do.?
Bisbee said the Crisis Center will do it all again in about a month at the Christmas Day dinner, slated for 1 p.m.-3 p.m. Dec. 25 at the Crisis Center.
?We?re just trying to serve the community in any way we can and we?ve found there is a need for people to be able to have a place to go on these holidays,? Bisbee said. ?That?s why we continue to sponsor these events.?
Source: http://www.carthagepress.com/features/x729318364/Tornado-s-impact-felt-on-Thanksgiving
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