Disaster Relief Update – District 2-S4 Lions

Today across the district Lions distributed pallets of water. Yesterday with little to no notice Lions from our District jumped into action when we were able to secure pallets of water. The same groups immediately organized the distribution of the water in their respective communities.
In less than 24 hours 15 pallets or 900 cases of water made it to our friends and neighbors who were in need.

Below are pics of Members from Pearland Silverlake Lions and Pearland Lions handing out water to the community. Also members of Brookside community and Pearland Police helped with water distribution to Brookside.

MORE WATER IS COMING!
We still have about 40% of our LCIF Emergency Grant that will be used to purchase roughly 17 pallets of water later this week.

If your club has a need, whether it is one case or five pallets, please, send an email to msweeneylions@gmail.com. I am working on a distribution list for the next allotment of water. Think beyond the needs of this week or even next week, but of the needs in three weeks from now when people in your community are still waiting to get their homes repaired by plumbers and are relying on bottled water for cooking, cleaning, and drinking.

The focus of the next seventeen pallets is to reach people who have a long-term need because the water in their homes has been shut off until repairs happen. People who financially cannot afford to live off of cases of water or who are shut-in and cannot easily get water from the grocery store. If you do not think your community has a need, ask the schools, community centers, and churches and ask if they know of anyone who fits that description. You might be surprised to find that there are people who are in need. For example, I had someone reach out to me today about Ball High School in Galveston, TX. There is a segment of the student body who are in need because they do not have water when they go home. I will be speaking to the principal at Ball tomorrow to see what our District can do to help her. There is a pastor in Texas City whose 9-5 job is doing insurance assessments. As he has been going throughout Santa Fe and Texas City he has found several families in need. He is going to assist us in delivering twelve cases to those families.

TEXAS LIONS FOUNDATION GRANT
I am happy to announce we found out today that we are receiving a $2,000 grant from the Texas Lions Foundation. The focus of this grant is hunger as well as water. At this time we are looking for needs related to food. We are looking at communities that have a large number of individuals who are struggling because they do not have water and it limits their ability to cook/clean. If there are individuals who have been displaced because of large amounts of damage to their homes we can assist them as well.

Bunny and The Great State of Maine
District Governor Bunny of Maine sent a message to the Lions of Texas Website saying she wanted to help the people in Texas. This message was passed onto all the District Governors in the state. We quickly reached out to District Governor Bunny, she let us know she was having her cabinet meeting last weekend and was going to ask the Presidents of her seventy clubs to donate their discretionary funds to assist us in recovery efforts. At her cabinet meeting this past Sunday, she raised $2500 and the clubs were planning to collect donations throughout this week. She has pledged those funds to our District. DG Bunny coordinated with District Treasurer Larry and is mailing us the donation. After speaking with the District Governor we would like to utilize this donation with some other donations and some funds from our Disaster Relief Budget towards helping individuals with repairing their homes.

We know that people are having a difficult time getting plumbers in and/or procuring the supplies to do the repairs on their own. We are looking into purchasing supplies to assist these individuals. If you know someone in a great financial need or if you live in an area that has a large population of people without water who cannot get supplies reach out to the District Governor or me and tell us what is going on. We are still working out a plan for these resources as we are working with companies on how we will be able to get the supplies. We hope to have a plan for recovery and taking steps for action by this time next week.

DISASTER TRAILERS
With the assistance of our Vice District Governor Vivian and her family, we are bringing the trailers in for some repairs and improvements. We are looking into doing some upgrades for the trailers and I will give more of an update during our zoom Cabinet Meeting.

IN SUMMARY
I apologize for the length of this message but we wanted to update you all on what has happened over the last couple of days and the direction we are heading.
To summarize everything–
If your community needs water– Communicate with us.
If you have people in your community who need assistance with food– Communicate with us.
If you know people who need assistance with recovery– Communicate with us.

COMMUNICATE WITH US! We cannot help your clubs and the members of your community if we do not hear from you. We have seventy clubs in District 2-S4 and we have heard from less than ten on what their needs are. As your Alert Chair I am here to serve you, your clubs, and the community you serve I need to know what you need and how you think we should move forward. I would love to hear from you!