Practical Help for Flood Victims

This summer’s flooding in the UK was some of the worst in the last 50 years. Gloucestershire was one of the worst affected areas and many people’s homes were badly damaged. Hope Church, Worcester was able to offer practical help to those in need, and Richard Thomas, who leads the church, describes what went on.

‘It‘s great to be part of a family of churches where this sort of thing actually happens!’
This was the response of one of Hope Church’s newer members who was involved in helping folk affected by the extensive flooding in Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire this summer.
 
Members of Hope Church, in Worcester, donned rubber gloves and wellies and turned up in force to serve one of the many small communities affected by the flooding.  We hired skips and cleared many back gardens of huge amounts of drift material, damaged fencing and pollutants, going door to door offering to serve anyone who had need.

In one house, already uninsurable due to previous floods, church members scrubbed walls and floors clear of mud, flood water stain and other unmentionables! A grateful resident commented ‘you did in one evening what it would take us a week to do’.

One thank you letter states ‘so many of your people energetically set to cleaning up after what proved to be higher flooding even than the 1947 floods. Thank you for all the love and practical concern, we appreciate all you were able to accomplish.'

Via the generosity of the Newfrontiers family we were able to help the additional pressure on the food bank in Gloucester, who fed many hundreds of additional people in temporary accommodation for a short period. We were also able to assist with the cost of recovering flood damaged buildings and replacing furniture in a couple of situations.

The reclamation and restoration work will continue for many months and involves many hundreds of people and organisations but it was great to be able to make a unique and personalised contribution and to bring practical ‘hope’ to some who were short of it!