As winter storm Nemo hit New York and New England last weekend, Hurricane Sandy relief work continued in Brooklyn, NY. Brooklyn Presbyterian Church, one of our newest churches has been the focus of our prayer and financial support in this work. Thanks to your generous donations, to date $102,000 has been disbursed to Brooklyn from the EPC Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund.
Associate Pastor Brian Steadman has been freed from pastoral responsibilities to devote his full attention to the relief work. Expressing gratitude for the EPC’s “very generous donations”, Pastor Steadman noted, “The needs in the affected neighborhoods are great, and many of those needs will be there long after disaster relief comes to an end.”
The latest video giving an update on the relief work can be found at http://vimeo.com/58644609.
A check for $40,000 from the Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief Fund has been sent to Brooklyn Presbyterian Church to help pay for the following relief work in February:
• Purchase mold remediation equipment, if it’s not possible to get commercial grade equipment donated.
• Rent 2-3 40′ containers for tools and rebuilding supplies and home furnishing donations. This also involves clearing an empty lot owned by Coney Island Tabernacle Church who we are partnering with. We will also have to purchase a new fence for the lot to secure the storage. We will pay a contractor to level the ground. We may also need to purchase some type of fill material so the containers can sit securely and not sink into the ground.
• Pay for the monthly electric bill for mobile office trailer, continued maintenance and office supply costs.
• Pay to install and maintain phone and internet service for mobile office trailer.
In response to numerous requests from churches asking to send volunteer short term mission teams, Brian reports that the major obstacle continues to be housing: “Accommodations are limited” and staying in a hotel is “cost prohibitive.”
Brian also shared the following prayer requests:
• For displaced families facing an end to their FEMA paid for hotel rooms on Feb. 9th. FEMA has extended this deadline numerous times, but we are told this will be it. Many face entering city shelter services if they are unable to secure housing in the next week.
• For families living in homes still without heat, some of them living in unsafe mold growth conditions.
• Finding free to cheap housing for short term teams, huge need to facilitate much needed volunteer teams from outside NYC.
• Volunteer and financial resources needed for muck out and rebuilding projects.
• Getting the mobile office trailer finally hooked up to direct power. This is long overdue and desperately needed. We are close, just waiting on ConEd to come approve and turn the power on.
