Ohio group helps rebuild

Members of the mission team from Wadsworth and Edison United Methodist Churches in Ohio look over the roof they were repairing at the home of Kayla and Reed Reed Plunkett of Phil Campbell.

The tornado-damaged areas of Franklin County have come a long way in the 15 months since the events of April 27, 2011 transpired.
Memorials have been constructed in East Franklin and Phil Campbell, houses have been rebuilt and repaired, debris has been cleaned up, and the old Phil Campbell High School will finally be coming down today with plans for a new high school to be built in its stead.
With all this progress taking place, it might seem shocking to some that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, but volunteer contractor John Raimer, who has been helping with construction projects throughout the area since last June, has said many times with the people in the county who are still needing help, volunteer labor is as important as ever.
And Phil Campbell residents Kayla and Reed Plunkett couldn’t agree more.
When the tornado tore through Phil Campbell, the Plunketts were huddled in the basement and Kayla’s grandmother’s home.
Their lives were thankfully spared, but their home that was located just down the road from the destroyed Mt. View Baptist Church was a different story.
“It was completely wiped out,” Kayla Plunkett said. “Everything was just gone.”
For a month after the disaster, the Plunketts stayed with Reed’s sister in Hackleburg before moving into a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailer for another month.
But by July 2011, they were ready to have something more permanent so they could start rebuilding their lives.
The Plunketts were able to find a home closer to the East Franklin community that was for sale, but for it to be in their price range, the home came with a few problems.
“The tornado came right through here, too, and the guy that owned the house fixed the worst damage so he could sell it, but there was still a lot that needed to be done,” Reed Plunkett said.
They weighed their options and the Plunketts decided just having a permanent residence was what mattered the most.
They bought the house and tried to make repairs as they could, but having to start completely over from scratch isn’t cheap.
With the funds for repairs quickly dwindling, even small repairs had to be prioritized, but when the damaged roof caused the ceiling in one of their bedrooms to collapse, they were at a standstill.
“We didn’t know how we were going to get it fixed,” Reed said.
But little did the Plunketts know that there was a group of strangers in Ohio that would be the answer to their prayers.
Aaron Vandersommers and Mary Ann Tony, members of the disaster relief missions team from Wadsworth United Methodist Church in Wadsworth, Ohio, sit down each fall and decide where their church’s team needs to go that upcoming spring.
To find out what places have the most need for mission work, Vandersommers and Tony consult the United Methodist Commission of Relief (UMCOR) website, which lists disaster-affected areas and projects that need attention.
“We found out about the needs in Phil Campbell from UMCOR and decided this was an area that could really benefit from the skills we can provide,” Vandersommers said. “Our church first organized a multi-generational missions team after Hurricane Katrina hit, and our first attempt at mission and service work with this team was in a couple of towns outside of New Orleans that had been damaged by tornados and storms that were spawned by the hurricane.”
Vandersommers said they spent three years working in Louisiana, and they have been doing mission work ever since because it’s what they feel led to do.
“We very much believe that God calls us to serve others, and we think this is the best way for us to do that,” Vandersommers said. “Disaster response is just our calling.”
The group of 17 workers from Wadsworth UMC was joined by eight members of Edison Memorial United Methodist Church in Milan, Ohio, who had seen the plans for Wadsworth’s upcoming mission trip to Phil Campbell and wanted to be a part of it.
“Wadsworth and Milan are about a hundred miles apart, so the two groups didn’t know each other,” Vandersommers said. “We just had a common goal to help the people of Phil Campbell.
“We met up with the group from Edison Memorial at a rest stop on the interstate and they’ve really been a big help.”
Once the group got to North Alabama on July 14, they were split into three teams to work on three separate projects in the area for the week.
One project included installing vinyl flooring in a Phil Campbell residence; another project included refurbishing motor homes used by Camp Mike, a Methodist camp just north of Russellville; and the final team was assigned to the Plunketts home near East Franklin to help with the repairs to the roof and ceiling.
“We took off all the old shingles and repaired the damage and put on new shingles so it’s like they have an all new roof,” Vandersommers said. “We reconstructed the roof over the porch, we removed the old, collapsed ceiling in the bedroom and put up a new ceiling and drywall.”
Vandersommers said it has been a great experience getting to know the Plunketts and the people of First United Methodist Church in Russellville, where the group stayed for the week.
“The Southern hospitality has been amazing,” he said. “We have felt welcome from the moment we got here. That’s what’s so great about doing mission work in the rural South. We appreciate the friendliness and kindness that has been shown to us.”
But the mission team members aren’t the only ones who are appreciative.
“What they’ve done for us this week means the world to us,” Reed Plunkett said. “We wouldn’t have had the means to do all this work ourselves, so it’s just a blessing that they came here. We can’t thank them enough.”