With the raging winds of Hurricane Harvey gone and the floodwaters beginning to subside, the focus is now turning to salvaging homes and belongings before they are destroyed by mold, water and moisture.
In a race against time, hundreds of young volunteers from Chabad centers on campuses from as far away as Boulder, Colo., are making their way to Houston this Sunday to join the army of local volunteers that has been functioning out of a Chabad-center-turned-command-post since the storm hit.
Already on the ground since Tuesday are an estimated 200 volunteers from Chabad at Rice University, who are helping residents tear up carpets, remove waterlogged drywall, and pack and store salvageable belongings.
“For the first two days, many students were sitting around and feeling bad,” says Leah Sherman, a native of Memphis, Tenn., who is majoring in bioengineering at Rice. “When Rabbi Shmuli Slonim from Chabad asked us to get involved, we were very happy to have a way to contribute,” she tells Chabad.org.
Sherman spent Tuesday cooking meals for volunteers and people who have lost their homes, and has been working on the cleanup since Wednesday. Speaking from a home that sustained 3 feet of flooding, she says she has been hauling out buckets of smashed drywall, while her fellow Chabad volunteers pack, break and bleach as needed.
The owner of the home she has been assigned to is Susy Brown, who lived there with her two adult children. “G‑d gives, and G‑d will give again,” says Brown, who was rescued by boat and van as the floodwaters rose. “The volunteers have been amazing! We have kosher meals delivered, and a team of young people to work with me and my children as we salvage our home. This allows me to make phone calls and do other things. I don’t have to worry.”
Brown says she has no immediate plans to return to her house, where the full results of lack of air-conditioning and stagnant water have yet to be assessed.
Rice student Alex Rovner says Chabad was the first student organization to mobilize, and that prompted him and many other students to sign up as soon as the Slonims let them know that groups were being organized in conjunction with Chabad’s main relief command center.
“It’s hot and humid here,” says Rovner, who is from Charleston, S.C., and studies environmental science and biochemistry at Rice. “We are working our hardest to ensure that wood doesn’t mold.”
In addition to personally volunteering, Rovner used social media to marshal dozens of student volunteers for Chabad’s efforts.
From Near and Far
Over the weekend, the volunteers will be joined by hundreds of fellow volunteers from Chabad on campus chapters all over.
Coming from as far as Boulder, a group from the Rohr Chabad Center at the University of Colorado will be driving down and also sending a truckful of supplies. The gesture is particularly meaningful for them since Chabad on Campus volunteers were central in the relief effort after Boulder flooded in 2013.
Soon to arrive from College Station, Texas, will be a group of Chabad on Campus volunteers, many of whom have been busy cooking, shopping and shipping supplies since Monday.
They will be joined by Chabad on Campus groups from the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Texas at San Antonio and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. On Sunday evening, after a long day in hot homes, the students will gather for an ad hoc Chabad on Campus dinner.
“All the relief work is the result of our Chabad on Campus rabbis and their wives,” attests Rovner. “They were the ones who brought us together to make a difference.”
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