By Bill Chini, Executive Director of Mary & Martha House
To support, visit www.marymarthahouse.org.
“Take care of your house first. If your house is good, help your neighbor.”
I speak these words to my daughter on a regular basis. While this was first spoken as a metaphor, it’s now a quite literal notion. For those of you who suffered from Hurricane Helene, our thoughts and prayers are with you, we hope you find normalcy swiftly and safely. Our hearts go out to the entire neighborhood here in South County, our friends and our neighbors are suffering. We have already seen the community band together for the sake of their neighbors. We commend everyone for their efforts in helping our community, our family.
Unfortunately, Mary & Martha House did not survive without incident. During shelter checks Friday morning we were faced with the grave sight of a water-line of about one foot high throughout the entire shelter. Every piece of furniture, in every room of the shelter, are ruined and being disposed of. Thankfully, all three families that were residing in the shelter had evacuated well before the storm hit.
We are requesting support from our community. We need your help. We will be removing drywall, flooring, all cabinets throughout the house, and all of the furniture due to the flood. We are also in need of hotel or AIRBNB stays for the families that have been displaced, until we can find a solution.
This is going to be a support-by-phase plan. We cannot take in furniture until the shelter has completed its mold remediation. We cannot move forward with the mold remediation until we’ve had the walls tested for asbestos. Actions are in motion, but we will need your support throughout this long process.
Currently, we are looking for monetary and volunteer hour donations to help cover the costs and labor of the demolition of the walls, replacing the cabinets, conducting the mold remediation, and covering the residents’ displacement costs, etc. Once those items have been completed we will be looking for donations such as furniture, beds, food, housewares, etc.
If you are suffering due to the storm, please take care of your home first. If you are in a position to help your neighbor, we humbly request a helping hand. Our community has helped us through many tragedies over our 40+ years of existence, and we are hopeful you can come through for us again.
If you can support in a volunteer capacity please reach out to me directly. Please bear in mind that this work will be labor intensive. If you would rather support monetarily, please find the QR code below, or go to www.marymarthahouse.org, and find the donate button on the top right of the webpage. Both will send you to a website to donate, we use Donor View to take our monetary donations.
Thank you for your continued support and consideration at this extremely difficult time. We will rebuild and come back stronger to continue assisting those in need.
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