APPALACHIA — After cooking more than 4,400 meals from Dec. 22 through Dec. 30, the Virginia Baptist Mission disaster relief kitchen has shut down and volunteers are heading home.
Volunteers clean up after serving meals.
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Members of Tennessee and Virginia Baptist mission groups joined forces with Red Cross volunteers to cook hot lunches and dinners for folks in relief shelters extending from Lebanon through Dickenson and Wise counties in Southwest Virginia following a late December snowstorm.
In addition, they provided hot meals which Appalachia police, fire and rescue volunteers delivered to about 100 residents in the town and nearby communities.
While it was challenging to be away from family on Christmas Eve and Christmas, it was rewarding for volunteers to know that they were helping folks who not only couldn't be home, but were in very stressful situations, spokesman Patrick Johnson said.
Volunteers had a good measure of stress themselves, as those who were sleeping at their base of operations, Appalachia High School, went without heat Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Two volunteers prepare food warmers for meals cooked by the disaster relief teams.
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“The auger on the coal furnace broke Christmas Eve and we had no heat. The custodian would have had to feed in 20 buckets of coal every two hours to keep us warm, and we were not going to have him do that, so we just bundled up until the school system could get it fixed,” Johnson said.
Volunteers have rotated in and out during the duration of the group’s stay, based on work and other commitments, he noted. Some have been able to commute from their homes in Northeast Tennessee or Southwest Virginia. All have served at their own expense, he said.
Johnson, who serves as the Virginia Baptist Mission Board’s disaster relief coordinator for Southwest Virginia, outlined the way this mission trip, like many that have come before, operated as a joint venture between his group and the Red Cross.
“It’s the same every time. The Red Cross pays for the food. We Baptists cook it and pack it in cambros, which are specially designed food storage and transport boxes. Red Cross volunteers load the cambros, plus side items such as fruit, bread and beverages into vans and make the lunch and dinner delivery runs each day.
Baptist disaster relief volunteers on duty included, seated from left, Patrick Johnson of Nickelsville, Carla Moyer of Gate City, Melissa Hensley and Kathryn Vanyo of Greeneville, Tenn., Angie Denton of Richlands and Robert Hubbard of Gladys. In the middle row are Janie Fairchild of Church Hill, Tenn., Margaret Bradley of Greeneville, Tenn., and Joyce White and Don Meadows of Richlands. Those in the back row are George Bradley of Greeneville, Tenn., and Jim Denton of Richlands. Not pictured is W.C. Wilhoit of Greeneville, Tenn.
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“It adds up to a lot of miles when you realize the Red Cross drivers do the same route twice, back-to-back. But we cook while they do the first run, then we clean up while they do the second run.”
Comfort food is the priority. Meals have ranged from chicken and dumplings and beef stew to spaghetti and beef patties with gravy and mashed potatoes, he said.
“We were very fortunate on this trip. We were able to work both in our mobile kitchen and in this wonderful school cafeteria. We could use the school’s walk-in refrigerator and freezer and do our cleanup between meals in the cafeteria sinks, which was a whole lot better than having to work outside in the cold,” Johnson said.
Johnson said Baptist mission volunteers cooked the food in a custom-trailer that he, his wife and fellow volunteers designed and built three years ago.
Up to 3,000 meals a day can be cooked in the compact trailer, which houses huge tilt skillets that can cook 28 gallons of food at a time, nine burners for cooking in pots, a four-foot griddle and a gas-fired on-demand water heater.
The mission group also has a refrigeration and freezing unit it can tow to disaster sites, such as Gilbert, W.Va., after the massive flood there in May and Virginia Beach and the Chesapeake area after the recent Tropical Storm Ida.
“The Virginia Department of Emergency Management and the Red Cross do the planning and tell us what we need to do and where to go, and we fix the food in the quantity that's needed,” he said.
“On this trip we’ve been sending 350 meals at lunch and dinner to Lebanon, Council, Clinchco, Clintwood and several other places, and Tuesday, we added 500 additional meals at Hurley. We just found out about Hurley on Monday afternoon, so we had to make a food run in a hurry to have enough supplies to go around,” he said.
The mission officially ended with Dec. 30’s evening meal, Johnson said. Most of the volunteers will never be face-to-face with any of the people they’ve fed, but they know what hot meals can mean when disaster victims are in crisis. And most of those on this mission will answer the call again when another disaster hits, schedules permitting, he predicted. Many are retired. Some are small business operators. Others are teachers or ministers.
“They sacrifice so much to help others, but it’s the most rewarding experience a person can imagine. We stay in touch with each other between trips. I can’t describe what it means or the friendships that are formed. It’s life-changing.”
Johnson, who served as pastor at Moore’s Memorial Baptist Church in Gate City until he retired two years ago, will be heading for Florida with his wife, Dana, as soon as all the gear from this trip is stowed away and the disaster kitchen is made ready for the next call.
He’ll be teaching a Bible study course through the month of January and hoping he and his wife, Dana, can get a little rest and maybe do a little fishing.
“We’ve been married 46 years. She picked me out when she was 12 years old, and it’s been that way ever since,” he said.
This wasn’t the first time disaster duty has kept them apart on Christmas, and it won’t be the last, he noted, but serving on these missions makes every day a gift to be cherished.
In addition to volunteering with the disaster relief mission, Johnson operates the emergency shelter at Nickelsville. “In the [Dec. 18] storm, we lost power at home, so we had the shelter open Friday, Saturday and Sunday night for anybody who needed a place to stay. Monday, we got the kitchen ready to come up here and Dana’s been holding down the fort at home ever since,” he noted.