Nashville Tornado: Day Four-On The Ground

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LIVE UPDATES FROM THE GROUND

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Nashville Area DISASTER RESPONSE: Mount Juliet, TN: Today, our Inspiritus Nashville team is leading 40 volunteers in providing debris removal. The devastation to this community is extensive. Inspiritus Disaster staff member (and Cookeville native) Kevin Burgess, is in Cookeville, TN, where he is working to setup a second operation base, now.

MyCanvas Art Therapy Program

MyCanvas Art Therapy Program

North Nashville Our MyCanvas art therapy program is empowering children & youth in North Nashville to process the trauma of the Nashville Tornado that hit their neighborhood. They are working through a “Transforming Destruction” art project, converting debris found on their street into a Rising Phoenix art structure.

As we enter day four of our tornado response, we wanted to share our latest information and action steps:    

We presently have six AmeriCorps members, one team leader and many volunteers on base under the leadership of Sherry Buresh (our Director of Response), Sabrina More (our Volunteer Manager) and Sue Glassnor. Mike Buresh, former Director of a National and International Disaster Organization, will train and lead in our chainsaw teams. Kevin Burgess (our Construction Manager) is a Cookeville native and he's in his hometown now working to coordinate another Inspiritus operation to help there. We've seen a steady stream of volunteers, but we need more. To volunteer, sign up here

NEW PARTNERSHIPS:

  • AirLinks is providing free flights for our leads.

  • IOCC (International Orthodox Christian Charities) has asked to partner. Two of them will arrive today, and an additional one on Saturday.

  • St. Bernard Project (SBP), a Mississippi based organization and known for long term recovery repair/rebuild has asked to partner with us as well.

  • Heavy Equipment Coalition, another non-profit, contacted us last night asking to join us. Their sawyer will arrive this weekend. Besides chainsaws they will be bringing in a mini excavator with them. The excavator and operator will be with us for 3 weeks.

  • Christian Emergency Network (CEN) has put out an advisory directing their partners to our website if they are interested in helping. They have 113 partners in the Nashville area. 

WHAT WE ARE DOING:

GERMANTOWN 

- Feeding Station for residents & responders

NASHVILLE

- Response teams for debris removal, chainsawing, & tarping

COOKEVILLE

- Response teams for debris removal, chainsawing, & tarping

THE NEED:

Germantown - Direct hit to homes and businesses; Growing concern about the need for hunger relief for families without power, especially low income or disabled families and children living in the area or families taking shelter in local facilities.

Nashville - This continues to be a search and rescue operation and crews are going house to house. At this time, there are 24 confirmed fatalities, including some children, and more than 88 injuries are being treated at Cookeville Regional Medical Center.*

Cookeville - Putnam County emergency officials confirmed 18 of the 24 Nashville tornado fatalities occurred in this one community, 77 remain unaccounted for at this time.**

HOW TO HELP:

Donate: click here  

Volunteer: click here  

Mail: Gift Cards & Checks

We need gift cards and financial donations, desperately:

  • Home Depot and Lowe's cards: for home repair work and debris removal tools

  • Gas cards: to get volunteer teams to and from the disaster sites where homeowners are in need

  • VISA cards: for clients who have extreme financial needs for survival, and for disaster work supplies

  • WalMart cards: to feed volunteer teams, and for clients with extreme financial needs for survival (ex. Pharmacy medications, baby supplies, etc.)

Gift Cards & Checks can be mailed to:

Inspiritus 

Attn: Disaster Response 

P.O. Box 60597 

Nashville, TN 37206

We need your help as those vulnerable in the path of this storm will need additional resources and shelter. To that point, we are also collaborating with our friends at Lutheran Disaster Response, the Tennessee VOAD, the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA, and the Mid-South District of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, as we assess and prepare our short-term and long-term response and recovery work in Middle Tennessee. We are closely monitoring, day-by-day, the emerging needs of the community surrounding our Inspiritus Nashville program site, and will need partners to help us to continue to respond to these needs next week. 

To donate, click here and select Nashville 2020 Tornado. Our prayers are with everyone in this tornado's path.

Blessings to all our friends and family in Nashville! 

-Virginia Spencer
Vice President of Development
Inspiritus

P.S.This was the first donation made at our Feeding Site on our first day. Hundreds of residents & homeless families in North Nashville depend on Inspiritus Nashville for assistance in their times of need. Our program has been rooted in the community for many years. We were so touched as these neighbors keep showing up at our site asking how they can help their more affluent neighbors of Germantown who live "on the other side of the street". Our work could not be possible without their selfless offers to volunteer, to help with serving meals to emergency responders, and even insistently donating $1 and $2 at a time, despite themselves having no power, insufficient food, declining health, and in some cases, no home of their own. We are humbled by and grateful for their living examples of the widow's mite. 

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