Flood of Hope

Last night, 13 ABC here in Toledo did a short piece on “Flood of Hope”, my effort to “surge” volunteers down to Ottawa to help with flood relief. I haven’t had time to set up a formal website, so here are the details– hopefully people searching for “flood of hope” will find this article.

The Ottawa / Blanchard River Valley area has been badly afflicted by the recent flooding. More than 500 homes are uninhabitable, and the Red Cross estimates it will take several months of cleanup work to get the area back in shape. If you haven’t been there, you might not appreciate the scope of the destruction— it’s worse than you might imagine,.

I am coordinating “Flood of Hope”, an effort to surge volunteers from the metro Toledo area down to Ottawa on September 6th. The goal is to get teams from Toledo-area employers to go down and help with restoration and cleanup work.

Here’s how you can help:

If you’re a business owner or manager, please consider giving your employees a paid day off or vacation day to participate. (A big shout out to Ritter and Associates, the first company to volunteer to do this!) The cost may even be deductible as a charitable contribution (but maybe not; only your accountant knows for sure.)
If you’re not a business owner, consider taking a vacation day to come help anyway, even if it’s not on September 6th. The cleanup efforts will continue for some time to come, and they need help every day, including weekends.
Spread the word. Tell your friends, neighbors, church members, and co-workers. We need all the help we can get.

The recovery efforts can use special skills if you have them—they need construction expertise, data entry and office skills, and good old-fashioned demolition and cleanup too. Whatever you can do will be appreciated.

If you want to join the Flood of Hope, please email me or call me at 419 873 8308 and I’ll get you signed up. It’s important that you call ASAP so I can keep the volunteer staffing coordinators apprised of how many people to expect. If you can’t reach me, call the volunteer center at 419 523 3288 and tell them you want to work on September 6th.