Responding to New Jersey’s victims of Hurricane Sandy, South Carolina Baptists filled 466 “Buckets of Care” through South Carolina Disaster Relief. Each bucket contains tools, first-aid and safety items and a “Hope in Crisis” tract.
The buckets, arriving from eight regional collection points across state, were collected Nov. 29 at the South Carolina Baptist Convention building and transported to a regional collection point in Edison, N.J. A team of volunteers from Bethel Baptist Church, Prosperity, packed the buckets in a truck for the two-day trip to New Jersey.
Eddie Fulmer, a member of Bethel Baptist Church, Prosperity, who serves on the South Carolina Disaster Relief task force, was coordinating the collection effort in Columbia. Fulmer and Bethel pastor Scott Kierstead left following collection for the 12-hour drive to New Jersey.
“I can’t say enough about the gracious attitudes of South Carolina Baptists,” Fulmer said.
Buckets came from regional sites, including Florence Association; Glenwood Baptist Church, Easley; Greer Association; Jedburg First Baptist Church, Summerville; Kershaw Association; Lexington Association; Ward Baptist Church, Ward; and York Association.
Fulmer said upwards of 300 South Carolina Baptists on more than 40 teams have already served in relief efforts in New Jersey and New York.
Kierstead said his church was like others that took on the bucket project. “Our people, like so many other churches, went above and beyond what could have been imagined,” he said. “We started out talking about 10 buckets, and Eddie pushed us to do 20. God pushed us even further, and we were able to do 40 buckets. It reminded all of us, as we prayed over the buckets, that God is in control.”
South Carolina Baptists continue to send volunteers to New Jersey and New York. Two assessment teams with members from Chesnee, Dalzell and Lexington, and one team from Early Branch, are in Middletown, N.J. In Long Beach Island, N.J., there is a command team led by Mark Smith of Sumter; a recovery team with members from Pickens and Easley; and a mud-out team with members from Ridgeway and Kershaw. A shower team with members from Conway is serving on Staten Island in New York, and another shower team is serving in Baldwin, N.Y.
Hurricane Sandy represented the largest storm mass on record with diameter winds spanning 1,100 miles. Preliminary damage estimates to the heavily populated Northeast were at $65.5 billion, second only in damage to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. – SCBC