Volunteer in Mission Trip


March 2006

Fourteen members from the First United Methodist Church in Burlington, Vermont traveled to Moss Point, MS at the end of March to spend a week helping out in the reconstruction phase of Hurricane Katrina Recovery. FUMC Burlington had established a sister church relationship with Dantlzer Memorial First United Methodist Church of Moss Point. This was in response to Mayor Peter Clavelle’s challenge to organizations to form special relationships with in the partnership being established between Burlington, Vermont and Moss Point, Mississippi. This Volunteer in Mission (VIM) team stayed at Dantzler Memorial as part of a total group of almost 70 people including United Methodist from North Carolina and Illinois and a group of Harvard students spending their spring break in Moss Point.

Dantzler Memorial FUMC was immediately involved in relief efforts as soon as Hurricane Katrina hit. The Church itself did not sustain any damage. It opened its doors to Church members and then to volunteers who came to assist in the recovery. It served as a distribution center to the community for all kinds of necessities including Water, Blankets, UMCOR Health Kits and Flood Buckets.

Dantlzer has a volunteer project coordinator, Frank Balcer, who does an incredible job to assure the VIM teams have projects to work on and supplies to work with. People in the community whose property was damaged come to the church and meet with Frank. It is then determined what work needs to be done, how the materials will be purchased (by the home owner, through insurance, by funds donated to the Church or a combination of the three) and when he will have the volunteers with the appropriate skills to do the job. Dantzler Memorial has sent VIM teams to work on over 300 homes since last September. Almost every Church in the community is running a similar operation, but Dantzler is truly blessed by having Frank and the Church staff be so committed to the Hurricane Relief Efforts. Pastor David Greer was just appointed to Dantzler Memorial FUMC at the end of June. His experience with Disaster Relief through UMCOR was very apparent and he and his Church members continue to be very gracious hosts to the many volunteers week after week that stay in their Christian Education Wing and use their kitchen and Fellowship Hall day in and day out.

The VIM team from Burlington was able to work on several projects
including new roofs, yard clean-up and lots and lots of dry walling.


We listened intently to many of the stories of how people survived the hurricane and what their lives have been like since. Many expressed thanks several times during a conversation for our willingness to come down and help them. We experienced first hand what it was like to drive to the next town to shop for food because Moss Point still has not had a Grocery store return within its city limits - just some small convenience stores that sell the basic food items.

We saw the devastation of houses and property along the shores of the Gulf, with some rebuilding, some selling and other people still not knowing what to do.

The Gulf Coast is a very busy place with people from all over the country traveling down there to work in the recovery efforts.

There will be recovery work for several years to come and the VIM team from Burlington was glad it could help out, even in a small way and looks forward to continue its support of the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts and it sister relationship with Dantzler Memorial First United Methodist Church.