Alabama Baptists collected roughly 8,300 Buckets of Hope for Haiti, providing nearly a quarter of a million meals to help victims of a Jan. 12 earthquake there.
The donations, which far exceeded the state’s goal of about 3,000, went toward the total of 132,000 buckets collected by Baptists across the nation during the project.
“I’m just overwhelmed by the level of response. There was a lot of work done by a lot of volunteers from across the state,” said Mel Johnson, state disaster relief strategist for Alabama Baptists.
Churches and individuals across the state adopted the effort as a missions project to benefit people in the devastated nation. The buckets aimed to meet immediate needs with specific provisions such as flour, cooking oil, rice and other foodstuffs.
A label on the bucket printed in English, Creole and French tells Haitians that the buckets are a “gift of love from Southern Baptists.” Now waiting at shipping points in Shreveport, La., and Jacksonville, Fla., the 132,000 buckets will be sent in staggered shipments over several months.
Other states contributed thousands of buckets to the total, such as Florida with more than 30,000 and Kentucky with 15,000. (TAB, NAMB)
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