Strength & Kindness In The Wake Of Joplin's Disaster

I confess that before planning this trip I hadn’t heard of Joplin, Missouri. Now I and people all across the country are aware of this city in the southwestern corner of the state. On May 22 it was devasted by a tornado that ripped through the southern part of the city, barely missing downtown but hitting the St. Johns Medical Center. There are estimates that 30% of the town was damaged and at this point over 120 people are reported dead.*

But, in the face of all that destruction, people from all over are rallying to help out this community. There’s a Joplin, MO Tornado Recovery Facebook page that already has over 163,000 subscribers. People are posting almost every minute, sometimes several times a minute, with offers to help, opportunities to donate, and information about businesses that are donating funds and/or services. Here are just some of the posts in the last few minutes:

A friend who works at my small farm has a chainsaw and wants to help with the clean up efforts in Joplin. His truck is not working, if anyone is going through Knoxville,TN to Joplin and can give him a ride please let me know. He is a hard worker and could really help out. Thanks

I wanted to share that Joplin MO has some of the strongest and kindest residents. Coming from a western Kansas Fire department to assist in search and rescue I have never seen this amount of support. Never shaken so many hands and seen so many people willing to help out. Every turn someone was asking if we needed water a place to sit down or a sandwich. Crawling over fences into backyards of peoples homes that werent damaged looking around and not one person was upset that we were doing it. I wish you all well and wish that I could have stayed longer to assist more but I had to get back to help with my family. God Bless all of you

I NEED TO HELP! Tell me what I can do to help. I own a small construction company and am willing to travel w/ my trucks and help remove rubage and work to speed up the road to recovery. PLEASE let me no how i can b of assistance!

JOPLIN SHELTER – MCAULEY CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL on 9th & byers is a shelter for tornado victims with medical help, water, hot food, counseling, clothes, and a donation center. Feel free to call and look for loved ones here. They have a list of people who checked in here & at freeman, memorial hall, or red cross. They have all the numbers

Jim and I won’t be in Joplin for three and a half weeks. By that time much of the clean-up will be done but help will still be needed so we’ve decided to spend our time there volunteering. We won’t be there long and it won’t be much, but hopefully we can help out in some small way.

If you’d like to help, see the official City Of Joplin Facebook Page or the Joplin, MO Tornado Recovery Page.

*Source