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the rebuilding worksites selected are past the initial recovery phase, sometimes two years past the anniversary of the tragic event. Economically disadvantaged people may still be without a permanent home long after the media attention on that region has dissipated. Children need exceptional help during turbulent times when disaster strikes. Brethren Disaster Ministries trains volunteers to go into areas to provide special programming for these children whose families are preoccupied with registering for aid or trying to secure the necessities of life. The District has several volunteers trained to assist children in this way.
In addition to supporting the broader Brethren Disaster Ministries, the Shenandoah District has recently engaged in local projects to make critical repairs to area homes. Wheelchair accessibility into and within dwellings has been the bulk of the early home repair projects. More requests for local assistance are being evaluated.
The District’s involvement with disaster ministry does not end with providing financial and volunteer resources. Clean-up buckets, hygiene, and school kits are the focus of the work at the Kit Depot, located behind the Shenandoah District office in Weyers Cave. The depot not only hosts options for filling buckets and kits for Sunday School and youth groups who wish to become involved with these service opportunities, but it also serves the region as a depository for other denominations to drop off supplies for Church World Service. A tractor-trailer truck visits the depot to pick up donated items once or twice a year.
The most significant financial support is obtained by hosting an annual auction on the third Friday and Saturday in May. This concept began in the early 1990s when Carlton and Hilda Ruff met with Catherine Lantz and others to brainstorm ways to support neighboring areas during flooding and other catastrophes. The inspiration for starting this fundraising and response project had been developing since Hurricane Camille decimated Nelson County in 1969 and flooding in Pendleton and Grant counties in West Virginia in 1985 took 47 lives. Finally, everything jelled, and the first auction was held in May 1993. To date, $6,069,138.27 has been raised through 31 auctions.
Since then, volunteers who serve with the District’s Auction Coordinating Committee have held an auction annually, except in 2020 due to the COVID-19 lockdowns. Virginia’s governor barred large events during the pandemic, and the auction was not held that year. Thankfully, as things began to open back up in 2021, a scaled-down version of the auction could be held in the barn at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds, and a generous donor agreed to match the money raised through the event. With the matching dollars, more money was raised after the pandemic than ever before, eclipsing the missed opportunities from 2020.
Today, the auction continues to raise money to send to Brethren Disaster Ministries for national and international emergencies and supports the work of local volunteers in the region. A portion of the money raised annually stays in the Shenandoah District to fund transportation and meal costs for volunteers responding with Brethren Disaster Ministries and to purchase supplies and materials needed for the Kit Depot and critical home repairs.
The auction for 2025 is set for May 16-17 at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds. Anyone interested in helping with the auction, kit creation, and critical home repairs locally or on Brethren Disaster Ministries projects out of the area may click here to receive more information.
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