HANOVER COUNTY, Va. — A dark could of worry lingers in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. Months after a deadly tornado left the community in shambles, families are still worried about how they will put their lives back together.
Renada Harris still thinks of this tiny town and the survivors she met, almost daily, nearly two and a half months after a tornado disaster relief trip there with a Hanover nonprofit that she helped organize.
“What you see on TV doesn’t compare and you can’t prepare for the feeling you get when you see the uprooted trees and the bent-over water tower. It’s why we are going back,” Harris explained.
She said during that April trip, the Brown Grove Preservation Group’s impact was significant.
Harris still recalls the immense gratitude shown by Rolling Fork families, when she and her family members packed a trailer full of supplies and drove her family’s RV hundreds of miles to Mississippi.
Their family, an integral part of the Brown Grove Preservation Group, collected items for a little more than a week before hitting the road to help a town full of strangers.
Harris said her father immediately thought of the idea when he saw the devastation on the national news, and heard a heart-wrenching account from an elderly man in Rolling Fork.
Harris and members of that nonprofit located the man and many others within hours of pulling into town.
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“They just couldn’t believe that we would come all the way from Richmond to help them in Mississippi,” Harris said.
After our CBS 6 News story aired, other nonprofits started asking about an extended community-to-community outreach.
Harris said a new project to pack an 18-wheeler full of brand-new needed items was born. The goal? Deliver the goods to Mississippi in time for the Christmas holiday season.
“We need a storage space. That will help us. If we get help with somewhere to store the items that we collect, it would be great. We are so grateful that Floyd Trucking is donating a tractor-trailer to our organization so we can get the items there. When we were there, the men needed shoes, women needed shoes. It will be good if we can take items to them because many lost cars in the tornado, so if we can take it to them, that would be great,” Harris added.
Collecting brand-new items for families that will be delivered in mid-November will begin in the coming weeks.
Harris prays it will give families a spirit boost during the holidays and help them continue putting one foot in front of the other until they regain some semblance of normalcy.
“We want to give new toys for the kids for Christmas. This may just help them get back their sense of normalcy. It will be good to bring them a smile and lift their spirits,” Harris said.
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Organizers said the next step, after securing a storage or warehouse space, is to draft and disseminate a list of needed items, according to contacts in Mississippi that are working with the Brown Grove Preservation Group.
To attract more area nonprofits, churches, and public service organizations like fraternities and sororities for this community-to-community outreach effort, an interest meeting will be held within the next few weeks. All are welcome. We will share the meeting details when the organizers finalize those plans and set a date.
If you would like to give brand new items or monetary donations, you can contact Harris and the Brown Grove Preservation Group on their Facebook page, via email at Savebrowngrove150@gmail.com, or by phone at 804-503-0611.
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