Local Community Goes To Bat For Hurricane Victims

September 8, 2005

By BEN GARRETT
Independent Herald Editor

Scott County residents are pitching in to assist with disaster relief for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the strong category four storm that struck the Gulf Coast region on August 29.

The Scott County chapter of the Salvation Army is currently accepting donations, and preparing to house families that have been misplaced by the storm, and local churches have also spearheaded fundraising efforts to assist with disaster relief.

In addition, several Scott Countians have left the county to work in the region devastated by the storm, whether by driving tractor-trailer rigs to deliver supplies to the area or to offer their services in the rebuilding efforts that have already begun in the three-state path of destruction left in Katrina’s wake.

The Scott County chapter of the Salvation Army is currently accepting donations for the victims, and has announced that 100 percent of all proceeds will go directly to the victims, with no administration fees withdrawn.

Tax-deductible donations can be made payable to the Salvation Army Service Unit of Scott County and mailed to Salvation Army Service Unit, 202 Chester Street, Oneida, TN 37841.

Another group of individuals have also spearheaded fundraising efforts. Bruce Kennedy, pastor of the Oneida Church of God, has begun an effort to help raise funds to assist with his church’s parent organization’s effort to truck supplies to the Gulf Coast.

“The main Church of God Organization in Cleveland has been FEMA-approved to take goods and offerings to Louisiana,” Kennedy said. “Right now, they’ve got more than 20 trucks running 24 hours a day to get supplies down, and it costs $1,000 per truck for fuel.”

Kennedy said that he and other individuals, including Oneida Book & Gift Shop owner Jim Swann, Greg Taylor of Greg Taylor Enterprises and individuals from the Oneida Church of God have been contacting churches and businesses in the local community in an effort to raise funds to help offset fuel costs to ship goods to the hurricane area.

“We are just trying to get the word out in the community that any and all help that can be received, we are grateful to have,” Kennedy said.

To donate money towards fuel, contact Bruce Kennedy at 617-1822 or 569-9519.

Kennedy said that his group is also gathering a truck of non-perishable goods from Scott County to ship to Louisiana. A trailer owned by Greg Taylor Enterprises is currently parked in the parking lot of the Oneida Wal-Mart Supercenter, where it will remain until it is loaded, at which point it will depart for Louisiana. Kennedy said that persons interested in donating non-perishable items are invited to drop them off at the truck.

Several businesses around the area are also donating to the hurricane relief efforts. Jerry Lay, owner of Lay Family Furniture, said that his business was donating because it was just the right thing to do.

“I think we should do all we can to help,” Lay said. “Those people are U.S. citizens just like we are.

“No matter how bad of a day we are having, at least we know where we will sleep tonight and that we will be able to eat, and we know where our kids are at,” he added. “Some of the people down there don’t even know where their kids are at.”

In addition to donations, groups are turning their attention to helping house some of the more than 1.6 million people misplaced by the storm.

Vivian Smith, spokesperson for the Salvation Army Service Unit of Scott County, said Monday that the unit is preparing to provide housing for several families who lost their homes in the storm.

“We’re going to try to relocate some families locally, and if anyone is interested in housing a family, they can contact (County Mayor) Dwight (Murphy’s) office and speak to Corey Long (663-2000), or they can contact the Salvation Army, she said.

Kennedy also said that he had received word earlier this week that a number of children whose parents were either killed by the storm or are unaccounted for will be housed in Scott County through the Church of God Organization.

“We got the word that 60-to-80 orphaned children will be coming into Scott County,” Kennedy said. He added that they will be housed at the church building across from the Oneida Post Office, which is owned by the Outreach Baptist Association.

Alan Carson, who heads up that organization, said that his group is currently “on standby.”

“We’re just standing by right now to wait and see exactly what is going on,” Carson said. “We’re just kinda hoping for the best.”

Any children who relocate in Scott County and are enrolled in the Oneida Special School District or the Scott County School System will be enrolled under special circumstances put into place by the state Department of Education, which has instructed school districts across the state to enroll students without first obtaining their records, as is normal procedure. Most of those records have been destroyed, or will be inaccessible for weeks or possibly months.

The Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, the organization that governs high school sports across the state, has also informed schools that student-athletes can join teams of sports already in progress, another change from normal procedure.

Scott County Director of Schools Mike Davis said Tuesday that he doesn’t expect many refugees from the coast to be enrolled in local schools, but said that they would be welcomed.

“If they come into the system, we will try to accomodate and absorb that enrollment into our current system,” he said. “I think we can do that without too much difficulty. This is a tragedy to humanity and we have to do everything we can do to help them.”

Davis said that school districts along Tennessee’s southern border are already seeing a large influx of students from the Gulf Coast region.

“They’re feeling the biggest effects,” he said. “They’re accomodating the students within the infrastructure they have, and that’s pretty difficult to do.”

But, he added, any costs incurred by school systems will be offset by funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Regardless of how many of Katrina’s victims temporarily relocate in Scott County, Davis said that everyone will feel the impact of the storm.

“The big impact on our school district is going to be financially due to the huge increase in fuel,” he said. “We’ve gone from $1.44 per gallon average for diesel fuel last year to over $2.11 this year. That’s a 30 percent increase and much of it is due to the storm.”

While the school system budgeted an additional $30,000 for fuel in the current fiscal year, Davis said the extra funds couldn’t keep up with the increase in the cost of diesel.

“This was something that was totally unexpected,” he said. “Nobody realized that a category four storm was going to hit, and noone realized that fuel was going to jump by double-digit numbers overnight.”

Davis said that the school system will be forced to cut back travel to accomodate the increased costs.

The bottom line, Davis said, is that local people are willing to help.

“I don’t anticipate a large number of students being relocated here, but if they do, we’ll do everything we possibly can to help them adjust and to provide for them just as we’d hope any other agency would if it were to happen to Scott County,” he said. “You’ll find that there’s not a place around more accomodating and more giving and caring than the people of Scott County.”

Katrina slammed ashore in the gulf at daybreak on August 29 after passing through Florida as a category one hurricane days earlier. Much of the city of New Orleans is in ruins, and as flood waters recede, officials fear that they will find up to several thousand dead beneath the storm’s destruction.

newsroom@ihoneida.com

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