COMMUNITIES HELPING COMMUNITIES

PLEASANTVILLE’S EMANUEL LUTHERAN PLANS JULY MISSION TO HELP HURRICANE IRENE CLEAN-UP IN NY’S SCHOHARIE COUNTY

DONATIONS NEEDED TO HELP REBUILD HOMES, BUSINESSES, LIVES WASHED OUT IN DEVASTATION

PLEASANTVILLE, NY, June 21, 2013 – Nearly two years after Hurricane Irene’s Labor Day 2011 destruction, the clean-up goes on.

In July, 20 members of Pleasantville’s Emanuel Lutheran Church community will spend their summer vacations cleaning-up, restoring and rebuilding communities in Schoharie County.

During Hurricane Irene, flood water swept through the streets, buildings and lives of the upstate county’s 3,299 residents, destroying hundreds of homes, businesses and even the Old Blenheim Bridge, the longest and oldest single-span bridge in the world. Business went bankrupt and families lost homes, farms and crops.

Today, 300 homes still have significant damage. Many roads remain unpaved, businesses closed and families without a stable home.

The Emanuel community of volunteers will be working with Schoharie Area Long Term (SALT) Recovery at Schoharie Presbyterian Church, which had six feet of water in the sanctuary during the hurricane. Emanuel members will donate more than 400 hours to help with clean-up and rebuild. SALT Recovery estimates that there is still three years worth of cleanup work remaining.

“Members of Emanuel have found that helping others is a way to live out our faith,” said Marianne Dietrich, one of the mission trip organizers. “Some of our past projects include painting classrooms in the Navajo Lutheran mission in Arizona and cleaning up debris from Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi.”

Donations of any kind are needed to help Schoharie, including N95 face masks, heavy duty garbage bags, paint rollers, push brooms, demolition and carpentry tools such as crowbars, pry bars and staple guns, and bottled water.

Donations should be labeled “SALT” and dropped off at Emanuel Lutheran throughout the month of June.

Emanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church is located at 197 Manville Road, Pleasantville, New York. For more information, please visit http://emanuelelc.org or call 914-769-1559.

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