Places of Worship Reaching Out to Hurricane Victims

Officials of all faiths say they will continue the collections indefinitely but also are exploring other ways to help what they recognize will be a long-term recovery effort. Some are planning to send teams from their congregations in coming months to help with rebuilding efforts.

"As long as people want to donate, it's an ongoing thing," said Jerry Orrell, administrative assistant at the First Baptist Church of Silver Spring.

At St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Kensington, parishioners are putting together health kits of personal-hygiene items and flood buckets full of cleaning supplies that will be distributed to hurricane victims by the United Methodist Committee on Relief. The church also has raised $15,000.

The Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring has collected $5,400 from its members and plans to continue collections for two more weeks, according to center volunteer Gulam Contractor.

At the Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville, church officials are working on "how to help place families, take families in," in addition to collecting the $7,000 raised so far, said the Rev. Lynn Strauss.

Officials there are leaning toward joining with other Unitarian churches to rent an apartment so that a displaced family can have the privacy it needs, she said. The churches would pay for the apartment for one year with parishioners' donations.

While Strauss is pleased to see her congregation's willingness to provide immediate assistance for the hurricane victims, she noted that the catastrophe has helped put a spotlight on the need to help the poor no matter where they live.

"There are plenty of people right now in Montgomery County and in D.C. who need this kind of help," she said. "Even though we will feel that we already do a lot to help the poor, I feel this is going to spur the need" to do more.

At St. Elizabeth, church officials are trying to temper parishioners' urge to add to the massive flow of non-monetary donations being sent south by stressing the need to think about how the church can continue to help in the coming months.

"They've been hugely generous and everybody would like to do something more than just finances, but we're encouraging them that there's going to be a long-term need," Swartz said.

Officials are working with a parishioner who may be able to provide up to 50 seasonal jobs for displaced people. The church could then adopt the families and provide housing for them, she said.

Today, nearly 40 members of Global Vessels, based at Emmanuel Brinklow Seventh-day Adventist Church in Ashton, are scheduled to fly to Houston, where the volunteer doctors, social workers, counselors and others will stay several days to help the evacuees.

On Friday, the Rev. William Finch, pastor of St. Raphael's Catholic Church in Rockville, who had traveled to Houston hoping to persuade 50 evacuees to come back with him, returned with 25 people who will be living with parishioners.

As they continue planning and brainstorming on ways to help, religious leaders were quick to praise the generosity of their congregations and people across the country.

"Another amazing thing to come out of the darkness is that we have the resources to take care of everyone and they're pouring forth," Strauss said.