Gifts, grants help respond to flooding in SC

Prayer shared on the Facebook page of Church of the Messiah, Myrtle Beach.

​Aided by private donations and an emergency grant from Episcopal Relief & Development, the Episcopal Church in South Carolina is responding to needs in the Pee Dee-Waccamaw Deanery of the diocese as flooding continues to ravage communities in our state following Hurricane Florence.

The Rev. Rob Donehue, priest-in-charge of St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, Conway, served as the lead in applying for a short-term relief grant on behalf of our diocese from Episcopal Relief & Development. An initial amount of $11,000 was approved Thursday. In the application, Fr. Donehue shared needs in Horry and Georgetown counties and detailed ways that the grant could help the flooded communities.

"I spoke with one woman in her 80s who told me that she doesn’t think she’ll have a home to return to," Fr. Donehue says. "She said that most of her neighbors will have lost everything and don’t know what they’ll do, but 'by the grace of God, we’ll get through.'" (Read a report from Fr. Donehue below.)
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Some of the organizations that were named in the grant are Shepherd’s Table, a soup kitchen in Conway, Helping Hands of Georgetown, Smith Medical Clinic in Pawley’s Island, and Waccamaw Animal Rescue Clinic.

Additional funding to support the area is coming from private donations, including a large anonymous gift to our diocesan Disaster Relief Fund, Bishop Skip Adams said.

"We are so grateful to this generous donor for helping us reach out to our neighbors who are suffering because of flooding," Bishop Adams said. "We're also thankful for the assistance we are receiving from Episcopal Relief & Development, and for all the people and churches here and across the Church who continue to give so generously in the aftermath of Florence."

Ways to give:
Diocesan Disaster Relief Fund & Episcopal Relief & Development 

A Diocesan Disaster Relief Fund has been established for donations to be used specifically within our diocese for flooding and other disaster relief. To make a gift online, click here and choose "Disaster Relief " as the selected fund. Checks also can be sent to the Diocesan Office, with "Disaster Relief" in the memo line, to PO Box 20485, Charleston, SC, 29413.

Episcopal Relief and Development also continues to collect donations for its Hurricane Relief Fund, which benefits areas in the Carolinas affected by Florence and other storm-ravaged communities. Make a donation here.

Volunteers may be needed soon to help with removing debris and damaged building materials at homes. People can use Episcopal Relief & Development's Ready to Serve signup form. 

A report from Conway

The Rev. Rob Donehue, priest-in-charge of St. Anne's, Conway, wrote this email Wednesday night about the situation in communities affected by flooding, and how assistance to the disaster relief fund can help.

I went today to the Whittemore Park Middle School in Conway. It has been turned into a shelter for folks who were evacuated from the Bucksport community. Bucksport is almost completely flooded - for the third time in four years. The people there are getting by as best they can, but the facilities at the school are far from adequate. For the first five days, there was no hot water. A church brought in a mobile shower unit, but it’s barely meeting the need. 

With the school district hoping to get students back in school as soon as possible, it is likely that people will have to be moved to another facility within a week. But even the Red Cross workers don’t know where that might be. The simple reality is that Bucksport residents will be in emergency shelters for many weeks before they can even begin to think about returning to their community to rebuild.

I spoke with one woman in her 80s who told me that she doesn’t think she’ll have a home to return to. She said that most of her neighbors will have lost everything and don’t know what they’ll do, but “by the grace of God, we’ll get through.”

Another Bucksport evacuee sheltering at the school told me his home was severely damaged in the flood after hurricane Matthew. FEMA gave him $12k for it, but that didn’t even cover half of the repair expenses. He took out a loan, which he is nowhere near paying off, and he only recently finished repairing his house when Florence struck. He can’t afford to take out another loan now and does not know what his future looks like. Those are just two stories from the @150 refugees at just the one facility I visited today. There are undoubtedly many similar stories.

Most of the residents of Bucksport live below the poverty line and do not have flood insurance. 

I spoke with my contacts from CAP, Shepherd’s Table, and ECHO today, and they are all worried that, even with assistance from state-run food banks, they are going to run out of food within a week. People are coming to these organizations asking for help with gas money, rent money, etc., and there simply isn’t enough funding to meet the needs. 

New Directions in Myrtle Beach is being completely overwhelmed by the calls for assistance. Their homeless shelter in Myrtle Beach is full, and they are having to turn people away. Most of the people they are seeing are not homeless in the conventional sense - they are poor and flooded out with nowhere else to go. The director of the facility said that if they had the funds to put people in a hotel even for one night, they would be happy to do that. FEMA housing will likely alleviate some of the problem, but that’s not in place yet. 

As we were wrapping up noonday prayer at the First United Methodist Church, a fawn ran across Main Street and through the churchyard where we had our service. I learned later that it crashed through a window at the Dollar General three blocks away. This story is a good example of what happens when wildlife is displaced by flooding, and I think it highlights the problems that animal shelters across the county are dealing with. When the waters rise, we tend to forget that it’s not just people that are displaced. 

The Episcopal Relief & Development grant will help us to provide some people with a sense that there is solid ground to stand on and that it hasn’t all been washed away in the flood waters. It’s a good thing to be able to tell people that we are here for them, but it’s an even better thing to be able to show them that we really mean what we say. 

I communicated with the Rev. Jason Roberson, the Rev. Randy Ferebee, Charlie Jordan, Mary Jeffcoat, and the Rev. Cn. Dr. Wilmot Merchant [leaders of area Episcopal churches] to get an idea of who needs immediate help. Their input was invaluable for identifying aid agencies in Horry and Georgetown counties that are struggling to meet people’s needs. 

Pax,
Rob