HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – A Huntsville volunteer group is jumping into action after an EF-3 tornado struck the town of Fultondale on Monday.
Steven Larson and his wife Tammy are organizers for Gulf Coast Disaster Relief, a nonprofit dedicated to helping victims of natural disasters; usually traveling to areas impacted by hurricanes and flooding.
“This is the first time a storm’s basically in our backyard,” Tammy Larson said. “We’re here this weekend to love on this community a little bit and provide meals to people who are really tired and really weary at this time.”
They said meals are the quickest way to offer comfort and take away a source of stress.
“If I can give you a meal, you can worry about something else. So my goal here is to feed your kids, feed your mom, feed your family, and then you can worry about getting the tree out of your driveway or you can worry about where you’ll sleep tonight, take a bath or think about the things you’ve lost,” Steven Larson said.
Volunteers with this group and other disaster relief partners will cook 3,000 meals with the help of giant vats that can hold anywhere from 800 to 1,000 meals a time.
Robin Jordan came by the camp to pick up meals for her father and son. Both lost all but their lives to the tornado.
“Just to see the community come together, and people come from all places and all walks of life to help,” Jordan said. “It makes me feel like there is still a lot of hope left in this world right now.”
Volunteers said it is difficult to truly understand the destruction until they see it firsthand.
“Until you really talk to people who have had that happen, there’s really no way to understand, and sometimes people, all they need is somebody to talk to,” volunteer Gloria Harrington said.
Harrington is part of a partner group out of Huntsville, Disaster Assistance Church of Christ.
Volunteer Alicia Root said they wish they could do more, but she knows that a small meal can make a difference.
“It may not be fixing their homes, or figuring out what they’re going to do in the next month or two, but for one lunch they have something hot to eat and their belly’s full,” Root said.
The Larson’s are grateful for the help.
“We put it together but certainly if it wasn’t for these guys behind us, we would not be here this weekend,” Tammy Larson said.
To keep up and interact with Gulf Coast Disaster Relief and their work, find them on Facebook.
by Lauren Layton (2021, Jan 31) WHNT
