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Cleaning buckets assembled and donated by members of United Methodist churches around South Carolina.

Bishop L. Jonathan Holston, resident bishop of the South Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, is calling on South Carolinians to remember what it was like when Hurricane Matthew struck our state last year – and to help make a difference in response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana.

Bishop Holston

“We want our brothers and sisters in the path of Hurricane Harvey to know that they are not alone,” Bishop Holston said. “We in South Carolina know all too well that recovering from a devastating weather event takes prayer, time and financial resources.

“Let’s show the people of Texas and Louisiana that they are not alone by giving generously to their disaster recovery efforts.”

The United Methodist Committee on Relief has made it easy to do just that in two ways:

  • Give to UMCOR’s Advance U.S. Disaster Response (#901670), which allows UMCOR to respond quickly and appropriately to emergencies in the United States, such as what’s going on right now in Texas and Louisiana.
  • Give to UMCOR’s Material Resources Advance (#901440), which helps keep a stockpile of relief supplies such as cleaning kits and hygiene kits for just such an emergency.

Every dollar donated to these funds goes directly to relief efforts. UMCOR can guarantee this because all of its administrative costs are covered by other gifts.

Over the coming days and weeks, members of local United Methodist churches across South Carolina will gather to assemble cleaning kits and personal hygiene kits that will be shipped to Texas and Louisiana and distributed to survivors working to recover from the floodwaters. More than 300 kits already assembled by S.C. United Methodist churches in the Greenwood District were shipped out Tuesday morning (Aug. 29).

Relief-supply kits answer an urgent need for disaster survivors while offering an important connection for the givers. UMCOR provides easy, step-by-step instructions for how to assemble hygiene kits and cleaning kits.

Locally assembled kits can be delivered to the S.C. United Methodist Conference Center, 4908 Colonial Drive, Columbia, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Still work to be done in S.C.

In the meantime, Bishop Holston reminds all South Carolinians that there’s still plenty of disaster recovery work to be done here in South Carolina, where hundreds of families remain either displaced or living in damaged homes in the wakes of both the historic 2015 floods and Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

If you want to help people in need closer to home, please email Nikki Ulmer, volunteer coordinator for the Disaster Recovery Ministry of the South Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, at nulmer@umcsc.org.

Click here to learn more about how you can get involved in the Disaster Recovery Ministry of the South Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Bishop Holston also encourages South Carolinians to join him in prayer for the safety of those affected by the hurricane and the flooding it has caused, as well as for those rushing to help them.

“We know as people of faith that God’s love will triumph in the midst of loss and destruction,” Bishop Holston said.

Click here to download an UMCOR/Hurricane Harvey church bulletin insert.

 

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