(RNS) — Even before Hurricane Helene made landfall in the United States, near Tallahassee, Florida, on Thursday (Sept. 26), faith-based disaster groups were on the move.
Disaster relief staff from the Southern Baptist Convention shipped food and other essentials to Valdosta, Georgia, where Send Relief, a Southern Baptist humanitarian group, runs a ministry center. From there, supplies could be sent to the Gulf Coast and other areas affected by the devastating storm.
Coming ashore as a Category 4 hurricane, Helene killed 52 people at last count and left millions without power in at least eight states across the Southeast U.S., according to the Associated Press.
On Friday, as the storm headed north, SBC officials and leaders from other faith-based groups were holding conference calls and planning their relief efforts. In the early days of their response, along with assessing damages, Southern Baptists and Salvation Army officials planned to establish mobile kitchens capable of turning out 10,000 meals a day in Georgia and Florida.
Two of the first mobile feeding sites will be based at Baptist churches in Live Oak, Florida, and Perry, Florida, both within an hour of Tallahassee.
“The Baptists set up their field kitchens, begin cooking, and then Salvation Army field units gather the meals and distribute them into the communities that were impacted,” Jeff Jellets, disaster relief coordinator in the Southeast for the Salvation Army, said in a telephone inter …