Hands on Disaster Response (Location: Mena Church of God)

HODR’s Project Mena is lean and mean with an appetite for clearing tree and debris in the wake of April 9th’s EF-3 Tornado in Mena, Arkansas.

Project Mena is a one-moth project ending on May 15, 2009 that has seen 19 volunteers lend a hand thus far. The project size and length maybe be small compared to some of our larger past projects but the results have been anything but for the 17 households we have assisted during their recovery.

The HODR chainsaws have been busy felling and/or “bucking up” over 132 tornado-damaged trees. Debris-strewn yards and farms have been no match for the power of our motivated volunteers, who often times end up battling the elements and the occasional patch of poison oak vines. Our team even dismantled and sorted, by hand, a nearly 200 foot long barn that had been pushed over by the storm. The farm’s owner, an older man, would not have been able to tackle the demolition on his own. Like a battalion of “army ants” HODR volunteers methodically demo’d the barn in a matter of days.

Volunteers have also secured blue tarps to several leaking rooftops until a permanent roof repair can be made and provided people power to the Adventist Community Services Disaster Relief distribution warehouse.

Many thanks to the Calvary Baptist Church that has recently begun feeding our team every other night with delicious meals. The Mena Church of God continues to graciously host our team, providing a base of operations and home away from home for HODR in Mena. Thanks!

We plan on continuing to help Mena recover until May 15th. If you’re interested in volunteering with us (and don’t mind working in the rain - the weather doesn’t always cooperate!) we would love to see you in Mena. Email info@HODR.org to volunteer, or support Project Mena with a tax-deductible donation.

Thanks to all the volunteers, donors and community members who have helped HODR help the people of Mena!

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On Thursday April 9th an EF3 tornado tore through Mena, Arkansas leaving in its wake a 14.5 mile path of destruction damaging over 600 homes and affecting thousands of lives. In response, HODR sent an assessment team to survey the damage and has been in the area since early Sunday morning. After speaking with local officials, other response organizations and touring the affected community, we would like to announce the start of Project Mena. Due to the localized nature of the damage and the overall response from the community and other organizations, we anticipate the duration of this project will be 30 days (ending on approx. May 15, 2009).

We would like to thank the Mena Church of God for opening their doors to HODR, donating space for us to run our operations. At this time the workload consists of tree clearing and general debris removal with occasional work on affected roofs. As the recovery develops we anticipate expanding our programs to match the needs of the community; to keep up to date on project progress please follow our twitter micro-blog for the latest news, and click here to view photos.

We’d love to see you in Mena! For those interested in volunteering please email Tom at info@HODR.org with your planned arrival and departure dates and read the Volunteer Info to know what to expect.

If you can’t make it please consider donating to HODR to support our work - become a Monthly Donor and your monthly gift of any amount will be matched through August by an anonymous donor - or you can donate directly to support our Mena Response Fund!

Bill Driscoll Jr.
US Operations Director