I received a call from a friend of mine that lives right outside of Washington, IL on Sunday night after the tornado tore through the small community. She wanted to help in anyway possible, and wanted to use her camera to tell the local Red Cross story. So, I hooked her up with one of our feeding crews. Last night, she sent me this account of her first experience with the Red Cross. It brought tears to my weary eyes. I asked her if I could share her words here, and she agreed, so here it is…
Submitted by Jessica Goode – Washington, IL
“After asking if there was anything I could do to volunteer to help out my home town, I was given the job of taking pictures of the Red Cross in action. I was assigned an ERV that was headed to Washington. The driver was from Red Cross in Quincy,IL and was not familiar with the area. I told him that I could get him to the area that would need us the most, so he turned off the GPS and allowed me to guide him into town. We had 3 volunteers with us, two of them are Methodist Nursing students. Their job was to prepare and hand out bag lunches. We had enough supplies to pass out 125 lunches.
As we got into town, I directed us to the subdivision of Gillman and Fayette. I grew up in this neighborhood. When we first arrived, we all got out to walk around and see if we were truly needed. The answer was yes. We walked around and asked residents if they would like a lunch or water. Most said no. They were working hard to dig out their belongings from the rubble of their fallen homes. Soon we decided to just bag up the lunches and take them with us. Once residents saw our bagged lunches, they were hungry. I just think that they hadn’t been allowed into Washington for 2 days and most didn’t want to leave their property to go get food. Most didn’t have the stomach to eat. So those people just took water. We walked the neighborhood for 2 hours and handed out over 100 lunches. As we were getting low on supplies, our ERV driver contacted another ERV in the area and we were able to meet up with them. They had taken enough food for 400 lunches, so they divided what they had left. We got another 125 lunches and headed back to our original spot.
I walked around with the two nursing student volunteers and passed out more lunches. It was heartbreaking. One family was pulling items from their basement that were unharmed, while others were moving bricks and debris just trying to find bits and pieces of their homes.
What was amazing was the amount of support this community has. Almost every home had 5 to 10 people helping them. Neighbors were helping neighbors. We would ask one family if they wanted a lunch or water and they would say “No, we are ok. But you may want to check with that elderly couple over there.” We had enough for everyone, but some people wouldn’t take anything because they knew that other might need it more. Washington truly is the best community.
We stayed in that neighborhood from 11:00 to 1:30pm. It was hard to leave those people… I knew many of the residents and gave many hugs while I was out passing out lunches. Hugs and tears. One lady said “My kids are past the age of wanting to start over..My son just retired. I don’t know what they will do.” She was heartbroken. A mother and her son came up to the ERV to get a few lunches. The son was around 7 or 8 and wearing a Mine craft sweatshirt, jeans and work gloves. He was playing with a stick in the dirt while waiting for their lunches. So I said “Hey buddy, that’s an awesome sweatshirt. My son loves Mine craft!.” He looked at me with pain in his eyes and said “It’s not mine, all my clothes blew away.” No words. What do you say to that?
I was able to do my “job” and get some pictures, but so much of me wanted to set my camera down, grab some work gloves and help people search for their stuff. I wish I could have helped out longer. Truly an experience I will never forget.”
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