Over 30,000 Texas volunteers trained by SBTC Disaster Relief since Hurricane Katrina

By Tammi Reed Ledbetter
September 11, 2005

No one was surprised that Texas Southern Baptists would come to the aid of Hurricane Katrina victims, but the magnitude of volunteer response amazed even the most optimistic leaders at Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

The Texas Salvation Army (TSA) 53-foot mobile feeding kitchen with a convoy of 20 TSA canteen units and 60 SBTC Disaster Relief volunteers was one of the first units into Baton Rouge, having waited out the storm in Beaumont Aug. 29.

Expecting to offer 25,000 meals per day, the TSA mobile kitchen unit fed 35,000 people the first full day of operation. Led by SBTC Disaster Relief Consultant Bill Davenport, the group soon moved toward New Orleans where holed-up residents of the French Quarter received their first meals after the storm subsided. Others moved into suburbs like Kenner where the staff of two hospitals arrived late Thursday for a meal.

Meanwhile, back in Texas, Southern Baptist churches that had no previous experience in Disaster Relief were pleading for the training that is necessary to serve in Red Cross and Salvation Army units. On Saturday following the storm, the 60 Texans registered for training swelled to 163, packing an SBTC conference room.

Though traditionally many DR volunteers are retired, this early group included an architect, meter reader, well driller, physical therapist, secretaries and many more?most of them under the age of 50. Thirty of that group agreed to head out the next day to Baton Rouge, joining 30 more already assigned from existing SBTC units.

The first groups into Baton Rouge slept on the floor at the local Salvation Army church where they shared one shower. On one occasion a local chef treated them to jambalaya. Nine hours to the west in Houston, a tightly organized operation was set in place to minister to the evacuees headed to the town where a flood devastated much of their area four years earlier. The tens of thousands of sympathetic Houston area volunteers would be processed quickly, many of them in place by Sept. 6, sharing a meal of chicken and rice pilaf before manning the feeding units.

In his role as the newly appointed incident commander in Houston, SBTC Disaster Relief Director Gibbie McMillan began training volunteers offering to help at the Astrodome and downtown convention center. When displaced people were moved from New Orleans’ Superdome to Houston, the Astrodome space quickly filled to capacity. The George R. Brown Convention Center provided overflow space under the direction of a coalition of faith-based groups.

Operation Compassion drew so many people to the training at Second Baptist Church of Houston that every route for a mile away required traffic direction by police. When the huge church lot was filled, volunteers parked at area grocery stores, restaurants and even a liquor store, walking several blocks to the training site. Although only Southern Baptists can join SBTC Disaster Relief units and wear their official yellow shirts, a shrouded Muslim woman with a Middle Eastern accent found her way to the meeting. She joined hundreds of other Muslims training to serve with their faith group.

Training held on Saturday of the Labor Day weekend attracted 1,000 volunteers, growing tenfold on Sunday and to 20,000 on Monday. Crowds were so large that overflow seating was utilized at the Houston mega church and the large number turned away remained for an improptu session added afterward. Operation Compassion scheduled four more trai