Doing my small part to help Joplin relief effort

Got a chance to help the Joplin relief effort out a bit yesterday. I only played a small part, but every bit counts. I can’t get there to help physically, but I plan to do what I can.
In case you didn’t know, Joplin is my hometown, but I moved to Houston this past December. Many of my friends and family still live in Joplin and all were effected in some way by the tornado last week. My sister’s house was hit and suffered some damage, but it is still standing. Several friends weren’t as lucky and completely lost their homes. One person I know is in ICU, but as far as I can tell, everyone else I know is alive and without serious injury.
Anyway, my former employer, is now the city’s main distribution center. So I got an email from their new tech guy yesterday. They were needing to setup additional phone lines to help deal with the volume of calls they are receiving, but he hasn’t learned the new phone system that well yet. So i spent my lunch break yesterday on the phone with their new tech guy and walked him through the process of programming additional extensions to be members of the Operator Group, and programming the various functions of the new extensions on a Samsung Prostar DCS. I know it’s not much, but it was something that helps the effort and that I was in a unique position to be the one available with the knowledge to help. It felt good to be part of things for a few minutes, but I really wish I could be there.

My son was looking at some of the pictures with me and he said, “It reminds me of Fallout.” I mentioned this to my friend Poorchoices and he said that’s exactly what it looks like.

I miss my hometown now more than ever and spend every night checking on friends on Facebook, and looking up more information on the damage, as well as the latest death toll. It just all seems so surreal. If we hadn’t moved, I’d be there in the middle of it right now, sorting donated goods, digging through rubbage, or who knows what else, and life just goes on here in Houston like nothing happened.

Anyway, if you want to help out, CHCC has regularly updated information available at http://www.chcchurch.org/the-storm regarding various ways you can help. They have a list of things they currently need as well as a place you can go to make donations.