workers train in N.E. Georgia town
Don Plummer - Staff
Thursday, May 23, 2002
Bowersville --- Sharon Wolfe joined some 150 recruits who gathered over the weekend in this tiny northeast Georgia town for basic training in disaster relief.
Wolfe, a nurse from Marietta, said she was moved by President Bush's call after Sept. 11 for Americans to volunteer.
But the real spur was "getting the bug" while watching her husband, Jim, cut trees as part of a Baptist relief group's response to a tornado.
"I was standing there in my nurse's uniform and just itching to get in there and start hauling brush," Wolfe said during a break between classes on debris removal.
Bush's call for help in the war against terrorism struck a chord with Americans.
Disaster relief officials say the normal two or three calls a month from potential volunteers immediately shot up to 30-to-40 calls a day.
Wolfe, the other recruits and their trainers paid their own expenses for the two-day training session at a church near Lake Hartwell. They took classes on clearing debris, counseling, operating mobile kitchens, child care for parents recovering from disasters and emergency communications.
After, they posed for ID pictures and put on the bright yellow Georgia Baptist Relief caps and T-shirts, ready to join some 3,300 other Baptists who have committed to working five-day stretches at disaster sites.
June Brown, a retired legal secretary from Atlanta and veteran Salvation Army relief volunteer, has some advice for the novices.
"They don't know what they're in for," said Brown, who since Sept. 11 has served six weeks at the World Trade Center and a two-week stint at the Pentagon.
"I discovered good things about myself that wouldn't have been there except for 9/11," Brown said Tuesday.
But she also faced a crisis of faith at the smoldering ruins.
"I've seen some flaws about myself that I wish weren't there," Brown said. But despite the physical and emotional toll, she said, "I wouldn't take anything for the experience. And I have a feeling that we'll be going out again."
No way to prepare
There is no way to prepare for the emotional impact of a disaster, Brown said.
"It's a different perspective when you see it on flat-image TV and when you not only see it personally, but you smell it and you hear it," she said.
Brown still remembers the smell of ground zero in New York. "It would get in your clothes and your hair, and even after a bath it was on your skin," she said.
At night, Brown would try to air out her clothes by hanging them outside her hotel window.
Another shock is the stillness, said Doug Watson, Salvation Army volunteer coordinator.
"The hustle and bustle of Broadway and 42nd Street, where we stayed, was still there," Watson said.
"But when we got out of the subway on Chambers Street two blocks away from ground zero, you would be struck by a stillness I've only experienced in two other places --- the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City and at the Pentagon.
"The eerie silence was so pervasive that it was like a shroud was thrown over that whole area," he said.
Immediately after the acts of terror in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon, the trickle of calls Watson was used to receiving from potential volunteers grew to a torrent.
Dozens of people a day "demanded that I send them up there," he said.
"It's just an overpowering thing to see those images and say, 'I have to go help those people. I have to be there.' "
Charities try to cope
There have been other less gratifying effects from the attacks. One is the decrease in overall charitable giving, Watson said. The Atlanta United Way cut this year's allocation to the Salvation Army by 12 percent because of decreased giving, he said.
Both are national trends.
The number of volunteers has increased in the past eight months, but 44 percent of charities report shortfalls in funds raised after Sept. 11 compared with their fund-raising efforts the previous year.
"It will probably come back," Watson said, "but there is no doubt that the 9/11 appeals have cut into the ability of relief organizations to deal with other disasters," such as the recent tornado in Calhoun that damaged hundreds of homes and the weeks spent feeding workers collecting bodies at the Tri-State Crematory in Noble.
The Salvation Army and Red Cross are well-known to most Americans, but many other relief organizations get little recognition.
Southern Baptist relief coordinator Jim Richardson said his volunteers often are overlooked.
They cook and serve meals delivered by the Red Cross or Salvation Army.
Still, it was the mobile kitchens and trailers operated by the Baptists and other church groups that hit the road to New York and Washington within hours of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"We sometimes operate in the shadow, but the major organizations couldn't do without the work we and other church groups do," Richardson said.
Patrick Belt is a carpenter from Douglasville who taught a class at the weekend training session.
He said technical proficiency isn't the only quality sought in Baptist volunteers.
"We're Christians, and we believe that what's in a volunteer's heart is as important as how well they can operate a chain saw," Belt said.
"After someone passes all the tests, we invite them into a room, and all the instructors have at them to see if their hearts are right with the Lord."
Students must have both the physical skills and a "right heart."
Then they are awarded the group's bright orange patch that marks them as chain saw experts.
Prohibitions against religious proselytizing at Red Cross disaster operations have prompted Baptist relief officials to seek closer ties to the Salvation Army, which doesn't discourage "witnessing," Belt said.
However, Brown and other relief workers counsel volunteers that being vocal about their faith can be counter- productive.
"A lot of people don't like it when they grab you by the collar," Brown said. "Don't go in there with the idea of evangelizing them. The Jehovah's Witnesses, did they hit the ground evangelizing when they first got to ground zero, and they got kicked out."
The most effective witness is listening, Watson said.
"We send our counselors in the guise of kitchen workers, wiping the tables, who just ask if there is anything they can do," he said. "That opens more doors."
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How dare they even show up there. Their demonstration of regard for human life is a joke!!
sKally
