Sandra Duffy
Over the past three weekends, hundreds of volunteers from three Mormon congregations based in Princeton have donned yellow “Helping Hands” t-shirts and vests with thousands of other Mormons throughout the metropolitan New York area and gone out into communities throughout central and northern New Jersey to help aid in the cleanup of Hurricane Irene. Volunteer relief efforts will continue as demand exists. As with previous disasters in the US, the Church is coordinating its efforts with FEMA, The Red Cross, The Salvation Army, and other civic and non-profit organizations.
The volunteers have been directed by their local leaders who have reached out to political, religious and community leaders to offer help. Last Sunday, the church members held a brief church service at 8 AM then car-pooled to Caldwell, where a command center had been set up by the Church. There they were joined by more than 1000 other Mormon volunteers. Teams of 8 to 10 were given work orders from requests submitted by residents in the hard-hit towns near the Passaic River and its tributaries. This particular Sunday the groups from the East Brunswick stake worked primarily in Lincoln Park and Little Falls. A typical clean-up project (such as mucking out a basement) can take a team up to 12 hours, depending on how much damage was done to floors and walls. Over the weekends, volunteers engaged in a range of cleanup activities, which included removing drywall, insulation, flooring, carpeting, furniture and appliances, and putting up tarp roofs, removing trees, and clearing out debris. After completing their initial work assignments, volunteers went door-to-door to offer service wherever there was a need. Besides the physical work involved, the volunteers took time to listen to the stories and frustrations of the residents.
The command center is being run by Neils Ludlow and his wife, Marti, who are experienced in setting up disaster relief command centers and getting them organized. The Ludlows, who are volunteers themselves, oversaw the LDS Church’s Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, and have been called in to aid in cleanup efforts after disasters in Tuscaloosa (Alabama), Joplin (Missouri), and Minot (North Dakota).
This effort is part of the Church’s ongoing Mormon Helping Hands program, which operates around the world. The program brings together members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and their neighbors to provide community service. Local Church leaders, guided by inter-faith collaboration and local nonprofit organizations and government officials, direct the work through resources from Church humanitarian services (http://newsroom.lds.org/topic/humanitarian-services.)
While The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a long history of helping those in need around the world when disaster strikes, the Mormon Helping Hands program was established in 1998, and since then hundreds of thousands of volunteers have donated millions of hours of service to their communities. The program started in South America but has since spread to nearly every corner of the world. For more information on the Mormon Helping Hands program: http://newsroom.lds.org/article/helping-hands.
The LDS Church is also supporting clean up in other areas of need, including parts of Westchester County, Connecticut, Long Island, upstate New York, and Vermont.
For more information on the history of the Mormon Church in New Jersey, see the LDS Church Almanac at: http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58716/United-States-information-New-Jersey.html.
