Salvation Army, Trae help victims of Hurricane Laura
Charities, churches, the city of Houston and local rapper Trae Tha Truth coordinated efforts to help victims of Hurricane Laura on Saturday, three days after the Category 4 storm heavily damaged portions of coastal Louisiana.
The Salvation Army is headed to Southeast Texas to serve food in six locations where Laura left widespread power outages.
The Southern Baptist Convention was scheduled to prepare food, starting with 5,000 meals a day, to be served by Salvation Army mobile kitchens, organization officials said in a statement. Officials planned to dispatch the kitchens to Market Basket at 2005 Texas Ave. in Bridge City, Sam Houston Elementary School at 3245 36th St. in Port Arthur, Orange Corps at 1950 Martin Luther King Drive in Orange, 114 W. Bolivar St. in Vidor, Newton County Fairgrounds at 415 Fair Park St. in Newton and Hearts Veterans Museum at 463 U.S. 75 in Huntsville.
“This is a long-standing relationship that allows staff and volunteers to serve food, kept warm in cambros, as opposed to actually cooking on the mobile kitchen,” said Alvin Migues, director of the Salvation Army’s disaster services for the state. This “simplifies and expedites serving food to hungry residents.”
The organization served 4,640 meals, 5,138 drinks and 1,274 snacks Friday from the mobile kitchens, each with the capacity to prepare and dish out 1,500 meals.
Houston officials and business leaders launched donation drives to collect supplies for residents battered by the hurricane.
One effort, dubbed “Houston’s Paying It Forward,” was coordinated by Mayor Sylvester Turner’s office, Kroger, Gallery Furniture and the community organization Relief Gang, according to a city news release.
“After Hurricane Harvey displaced many of our family and friends in 2017, people from other cities and states helped Houston recover by donating their time, money and supplies,” Turner said in a statement. “Today, we are being called to action for our neighbors who were in the path of Hurricane Laura and are now experiencing great suffering and loss. We cannot sit idly by while they are in need.”
Laura made landfall near Cameron, La., early Thursday with 150-mph winds, leaving a trail of wind- and storm surge-related destruction in its path.
Donation collection begins Tuesday. Requested supplies include diapers, cleaning supplies with bleach, personal hygiene items, nonperishable food, bottled water and pet food, according to the organizers.
Bethel’s Place Empowerment Center, a church and community center serving southwest Houston, organized a separate collection for hurricane victims in Lake Charles, La.
Houston rapper Trae Tha Truth has also pitched in. His Relief Gang organized volunteers to venture to Louisiana on Saturday, KHOU reported. He told the television station how Louisianans helped the Houston area after Harvey in 2017 and that he wanted to ensure that Texas returned the favor.
“That one when Harvey hit, man, everybody across the country helped us, so that wouldn’t be right for us to sit still when they’re going through what they’re going through,” he said.
The convoy contained 30 to 40 trucks full of supplies, KTRK reported.