November 12, 1998

Hurricane Mitch: How to respond through UMCOR

How to respond to victims of Hurricane Mitch in Central America through The United Methodist Committee on Relief:

1) The primary need at this time is money. Financial gifts enable UMCOR to:

support the relief efforts of our church partners in the area.
buy food and other relief items in bulk, often at a savings, and ship them directly to the disaster area.
provide the kind of relief that is most needed in a particular time and place.
Please give generously to the Church Wide Appeal for Hurricanes 98, Advance # 982515-0. Encourage your church to take a special offering for this appeal.
Give your gift through your local United Methodist Church treasurer. Or, if you are not a member of a United Methodist Church, send directly to: UMCOR, 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. For credit card donations or further information, call UMCOR at 1-800-554-8583.

2) Material resources or in-kind donations:

For donations of Bulk food items, call Rose Rogers at UMCOR's Office of Emergency Response, (703) 284-3601.
NO CLOTHING is being accepted.
All other donations (food, health kits, school kits, blankets, etc) may be sent to the UMCOR Depot in Baldwin, Louisiana where they will be sorted and shipped to our partners. For more information about UMCOR's emergency kits, click here.
The shipping address for the Depot is:
UMCOR Depot
131 Sager-Brown Road
Baldwin, LA 70514
For further information or instructions on material resource donations and shipping, call the UMCOR Depot at 1-800-814-8765.
Highest priority should be given to food items, particularly grains, dried beans, canned meats, and cooking oil.
UMCOR can only accept medicines donated by pharmaceutical companies.
UMCOR is asking local churches and Annual Conferences who wish to respond by sending material resources to gather food, kits, and other relief supplies and ship them to Sager-Brown at their expense, as the shipping is part of the gift. (Sometimes shipping costs more than the value of the gift, and this is not an expense that UMCOR can absorb.)
One of the most useful material resources churches and individuals can contribute will be Health Kits: 1 hand towel, 1 washcloth, 1 comb, 1 nail file, 1 bar of soap, 1 toothbrush, 1 tube of toothpaste, 6 adhesive bandages (Band-aids). Place the items in the towel and tie it with string or yarn.

3) Volunteers

No work teams are being sent at this time because there is no way to support teams in the disaster areas. Please call the Volunteer Line at (800) 918-3100 to register your interest to volunteer in the coming months.

UMCOR will sponsor some initial medical teams and is looking for medical professionals with language skills.