SISSONVILLE, W.Va. — Members of a Kanawha County church are traveling to Fort Myers, Florida to provide Hurricane Irma victims with necessary items they lost after the storm.
Junior ROTC students from Sissonville High School helped volunteers at the Calvary Church of the Nazarene Thursday load cases of water and other supplies onto two trucks.
“The biggest thing we want to teach them is integrity, patriotism and how to help out and be a productive member of the community,” said J.C. Knight, one of the ROTC instructors at SHS. “People go through hard times and it’s nice to be able to take part in the community.”
Church members planned to leave Sissonville Thursday night.
“We’re loading them both up with mostly water, we have some bleach and some crisis care kits which is just basic items — toothbrushes, combs and we even put a teddy bear in for the kids,” said church pastor Kevin Walker.
Walker said he just returned from helping Hurricane Harvey victims in Texas and felt compelled to give back, again. He said the church received a large amount of donations after West Virginia’s flood in June 2016.
“With the floods at Clendenin, I was receiving donations. We were overwhelmed with support from everybody from across the country that we had so much left over. I was looking for an opportunity to pass on what was given to us,” Walker said.
It’s unknown what the conditions will be like once they get to Florida, Walker said, but they hope to provide some relief.
“We’re expecting to see some devastation, so we’re hoping and praying that we’ll be able to be a breath of fresh air to the hurting there,” he said.
Florida residents were hit with the Category 4 storm last week. Thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed. As of Thursday afternoon, millions of people were still without power.