Mark Gainey said he will never forget the sight of flashlight beams bobbing all around his church as volunteers worked in the dark to get supplies together for the community following the Jan. 25 tornado.
“The devastation was about eight blocks to the church’s north,” said Gainey, pastor of Fultondale First Baptist Church.
It took him an hour and a half to get to the church after the EF-3 tornado plowed more than nine miles through his community.
On the way, he wondered if the church would be standing when he got there.
In April 2011, before Gainey was called to the church, storms had badly damaged its buildings and it had taken several years to rebuild.
“In 2011, they were numb and in shock, asking ‘How do we pick up the pieces?’ This time, immediately the response was, ‘We weren’t hit; let’s help the people who were,’” Gainey said.
It’s now been two months since the tornado devastated the Fultondale area, including damaging two church members’ homes and destroying one.
In the wake of the storm, nearby Walker Chapel Baptist Church became the headquarters for Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers, and Fultondale First became the place where people brought donations of household items, food, water and clothes.
Generous people
Gainey said it’s been amazing to see the generosity of people from across the state and Southeast who have donated supplies.
“We’ve been serving lots of families with immediate needs like clothing and bedding, diapers, you name it, everything,” he said. “It’s been really cool to see people contact us in different ways, and our church and our people have been blessed by being able to bless other people.”
Long-term needs
The need for those kinds of donations is winding down, Gainey said, and now they’re working with Fultondale city officials to help residents with more long-term needs.
That means providing ongoing food supplies as well as helping people bridge the gap of lost income and figure out what to do about housing.
Ricky Thacker, pastor of Walker Chapel Baptist, said he stays in frequent touch with city officials, and so far he hasn’t heard of any great needs for home rebuilding.
It seems many of those who lost houses in the heart of the damage either have insurance or have made other arrangements.
The “skirt” of the damage surrounding the area was mostly industrial and commercial buildings.
Many businesses were damaged, and even if they’ve since been repaired and reopened, their employees lost weeks of income, Gainey said.
Monetary donations
“We’ve talked with the managers and gotten so many monetary donations to help,” he said.
“It won’t replace what employees lost, but we were able to give them some $100 and $200 donations just to say, ‘God loves you.’ God’s plan is to use His church to meet needs, and the greatest need is the gospel.
“God has opened up avenues for gospel conversations that never would have happened otherwise.”
Gainey said churches also have been able to step into a role to help connect monetary donations for people in need.
Many donations have come in, and while the City of Fultondale isn’t able to accept and redirect those, Fultondale Cooperative Ministries — a partnership of local churches across denominational lines — is.
“It was formed years ago to operate and oversee our Community Food Bank, but we also partner for relief efforts like this,” Gainey said.
Working together
For years, their work together has been minimal, but this crisis paved the way for churches to work together like never before, he said.
Gainey said it was “beautiful” seeing that “mosaic come together naturally.”
“You never want a tornado to hit your community, but God has used it in lots of ways,” he said.
Click here to read how the Disaster Relief team helped a homeowner in Fultondale.
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