Tuscaloosa Baptists join others in multifaith disaster response network

Tuscaloosa churches have a new avenue to expand the reach of their disaster relief response. 
   
Through the Compassion Coalition of Tuscaloosa County, Baptists and other faith-based organizations have joined together to work with Tuscaloosa County Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) and the Tuscaloosa County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) to meet needs countywide immediately after disasters.
   
The coalition provides volunteers in churches and faith-based organizations that have teams and resources available. “We’re the connection point and are trying to keep a survey of all those people who can offer (resources),” said William Scroggins, Compassion Coalition chairman and director of the Tuscaloosa Prayer Network.
   
Don Hartley, Tuscaloosa County EMA deputy director in charge of planning-warnings-public information, said the coalition is a very positive thing. “Churches and faith-based groups as a whole … are uniquely situated in the community where they can be of direct help to other people.”
   
He explained that government agencies are often restricted in what they can do and aren’t able to do jobs such as going onto private property and helping to clear trees or cover roofs but faith-based groups can.
   
The key to the coalition working in Tuscaloosa County is the way it has brought together volunteers of all faiths, from Christian to Jewish to Muslims to others, Hartley said.
   
This way, there is a volunteer of almost any faith able to help someone of the same or different faith, he noted.
   
The idea for the coalition arose from natural disasters that have affected the Tuscaloosa County area in recent years, area leaders said. Jerry Wilkins, director of missions for Tuscaloosa Baptist Association, was one of the leaders from Tuscaloosa County’s faith community that helped form the coalition earlier this year.
   
“It is the entire faith community coming together to say, ‘If there is a disaster, we want to help,’” Wilkins said. He noted that the coalition is now seeking members. Tuscaloosa Association recently voted to participate and to encourage its churches to participate.
   
Churches that join are able to offer their services in the areas of food, clothing and shelter, among others. Because the coalition is a member of VOAD, member churches also become members of VOAD.
   
Flatwoods Baptist Church, Northport, decided to join because the coalition’s purpose fit in with the church’s overarching missions-mindedness, said member Brandi Wolfe.
   
The church, led by Pastor Cecil Smith, has run a clothes pantry and provided food vouchers for those in the community for several years, and these are the services it offered the coalition. “We feel like, as a church, Christ would want us to meet the needs of people who are hurting or have been through a disaster,” Wolfe said.
  
Wilkins noted that churches with members trained in Southern Baptist disaster relief could offer those services through the coalition as well.
   
“There is a deep, long-standing commitment of our disaster relief [teams] to the state to respond to the state needs or the state call for our help,” Wilkins said. However, “there might be a time when the needs are so great locally we may have to focus on those first.” 
   
This is in line with the mission and ministry of disaster relief, noted Tommy Puckett, disaster relief coordinator for Alabama through the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions. “We expect those people in a local situation to start ministering [in their communities] right after the disaster happens,” he said.
   
The formation of the coalition and the coordination of Southern Baptist resources with others is a model for every county, Puckett noted. By being proactive, the coalition has turned disaster response into “a community response of caring and meeting the needs of the people,” he said. For more information or to become a member, visit the coalition’s Web site at www.cc-tc.org.