A Trailer Comes Home
In the Summer of 2019, Carolyn Zimmerman, a member of the LWML at St Paul’s Lutheran Church in Marion, Iowa, attended the LWML Convention in Mobile, Alabama. “While I was in Mobile, I found the Disaster Response trailer purchased with mites that said ‘Cedar Rapids, Iowa’ on it, Carolyn shared. “I thought that it was cool to know that the trailer was going to be home in my community.”
Carolyn never imagined how close to home the trailer would come. “The next time I saw the trailer was October 10, 2020 in my front yard! Never did I think the next time I saw this trailer would be parked in front of my house!”
On August 10, 2020 the communities across Iowa and beyond were struck with a powerful thunderstorm called a derecho. Cedar Rapids and Marion experienced winds exceeding 140 miles per hour, causing widespread devastation. Following the storm, communication was severely disrupted due to outages in cell service, internet, and television. This storm has gone down as the most expensive thunderstorm in U.S. history!
In the aftermath of the storm, the King of Kings Lutheran Church Disaster Team sprang into action, helping the community by clearing trees and debris – often just to allow residents to access their driveways. The cleanup work continued well into the following year.
The trailer Carolyn had seen in Mobile was purchased with mites and given to the King of Kings Disaster Team in the fall of 2019. Since then, the team has continued to serve communities across the country offering aid and support to those impacted by natural disasters.