Nashville Flood Relief...Take 2

I don't know where to begin. It's amazing what a person can cram into one day sometimes. I'll probably break this up into several posts so I can keep my thoughts straight and make it easier to read. I wish everyone who donated items, money and gift cards, everyone who wished us well, thought and prayed for the people in Nashville (specifically my sister) could have been there. I wish you could have seen, heard and felt the gratitude. We told more than one person not to thank us; we were only the delivery service. The picture above shows what the back of our Ford looked like when we got to Market Street Apartments this morning.

A very large portion of the cleaning supplies, gloves, masks and bottled water went to the apartment complex. The building manager couldn't believe that people from three hours away were willing to donate to total strangers just because someone knew one person who lived in the building. The smell was unbelievable but they cleared a place in what used to be the office for us to unload.

We left downtown and headed south towards Lipscomb University. The Red Cross has a shelter there in the old gym which is now part of the Student Activity Center. They weren't able to use much of what we had but we met a lady from just up the street who could. She had a man working to clean her home who himself is homeless now. They took more cleaning supplies, personal care products, water and some food. She commented on how impressed she was with the support that churches have shown.

Next we headed to Bellevue which is one of the hardest hit areas. We drove through the River Plantation and Beech Bend neighborhoods. It was unbelievable to see the amount of trash in front of homes; basically everything that had been inside. Imagine everything that is in the first floor of your home laying in your yard including the walls. That's exactly what it is. It's just like the Mississippi Gulf coast was after Katrina.

We offered what we had to everyone we saw. Of course many people are working their jobs during the day and cleaning/repairing at night so we didn't see everyone. One poor older lady just asked if we had bleach. That's all she wanted even though we tried to offer more. One man only asked for hand sanitizer and felt bad because we gave him such a big bottle.

We also gave a lot of food and personal care items to a friend and co-worker of my sister's. It's a lady that she works with who lost everything including her home. Yolanda and her husband B. J. just moved into a guest house of the doctor she and my sister work for. As if this situation wasn't enough to deal with, Yolanda just found out she is pregnant.

It's getting late and it's been a long (but rewarding) day. I hope that summarizes things well for now. I'm working on getting contact information for anyone who wants to go over to assist in the clean up and rebuilding. A few of you have also asked me about sending more items and/or money. I'm working on getting that figured out as well. If you have any questions, most of you have my email. I'll try to answer as quickly as I can. I'll also post here and you can use the comment section under the posts. Thanks for caring!