Church members send much needed ‘flood buckets’ to Florida, Texas

Published 8:16 am Thursday, September 14, 2017

Just as rain from Hurricane Irma crept into Danville Wednesday morning, a few members of Centenary United Methodist Church on Perryville Road began loading a trailer with “flood buckets” to be sent to hurricane victims in Florida and Texas. 

Members of the congregation had taken up a special collection two Sundays ago to help the victims, said associate pastor, Sean Ryan. 

“We felt there was a lot of desire to help people rebuild,” Ryan said.  

Email newsletter signup

So United Methodist in Danville is working with the organization United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) which coordinates disaster responses from United Methodist Churches from around the world, Ryan said.

Joann Edwards, missions chairman for the church, said of the congregation, “They gave generously.” 

Edwards said they initially were hoping for enough donations to fill at least 50 buckets, but within three days, they were able to fill 150.

Once they had the donations, Kaytrina Leathers, facility coordinator for the church, started shopping for supplies. Leathers said they were working in a very short time frame to purchase supplies needed and get the buckets filled. She spent about three days, “going from Dollar Tree to Dollar Tree” in about five counties trying to gather all of the cleaning items, Leathers said. And Lowe’s donated all of the bright blue buckets to be filled.

Flood buckets are precisely filled with specific cleaning supplies listed by UMCOR.

This past Sunday, between 100 and 200 members from the two morning worship services worked on an assembly line filling each of the buckets which took only a total of about 25 minutes, Leathers said. Items packed include liquid laundry detergent and household cleaner, dish soap, clothespins and clotheslines, sponges, trash bags, cleaning wipes, air freshener, insect repellent spray, kitchen gloves, work gloves, scouring pads, scrub brush and dust masks. And since the affected areas are trying to get rid of trash, all supplies are already taken out of their packaging so not to add to the mess. 

The supplies collected and packed by the Danville congregation will flow with the other Methodist churches through UMCOR, Ryan said.

They don’t know exactly where their flood buckets were going to be shipped to, but “I know they’re going to the area most in need. We’re trusting that God will send them to where they need to go,” Ryan said.