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Haiti Earthquake Relief

UMCOR Advance for Haiti
The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) has established a special fund for Haiti Earthquake Relief.  Checks can be made payable to your local church with "UMCOR" in the memo line and placed in the church’s offering plate.  The churches can then make one check payable to the Kansas East Conference with "Haiti Earthquake Relief" clearly marked in the memo line and send it to the conference office.

Online donations can be made at: http://secure.gbgm-umc.org/donations/umcor/donate.cfm?id=3018760&code=418325.

 

Haiti team information:

Frequently Asked Questions
UMCOR has developed "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) to help with questions about what local congregations can do to respond to presented needs following the Haitian earthquake.  The information can be found on UMCOR's web site.

Important team insurance information
The Conference's international trip insurance carrier is requiring additional information from all volunteer teams travelling to Haiti to work. Failure to do so may result in a loss of coverage for conference teams and local church teams traveling to Haiti. Contact Kay Inman in the conference office for details at 877-972-9111. The forms are available in the Administration section of this website under "Trip Insurance Program."

Haiti Earthquake Team Fund
Kansas East Conference has set up a special fund to assist with team expenses related to upcoming Haiti Earthquake Response Teams being deployed through the Conference.  If you would like to donate to this fund, please make checks payable to: Kansas East Conference UMC, Attn: Jan Swift, P.O. Box 4187, Topeka, KS  66604.  Please include Acct.#963 – Haiti Earthquake Team Fund on the comment line of your check. 

Haiti Team Possibilities
There will be a great need for volunteers to help rebuild once the initial crisis has settled. At this time, it is not safe or possible for volunteers to go to Haiti. In order to frame a response that is consistent with the churches’ needs, people wishing to volunteer should contact:  Julie Pohl at kseastvim@yahoo.com.  Julie is keeping a list of those persons and is currently developing a special disaster specific training for Haiti Response teams.  Additional information will be provided in future updates as we have additional information.  

Before teams or individuals depart for Haiti, information from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has immunization and up-to-date health information.

Urgent need for medical volunteers
We have received an urgent request for medical volunteers, especially for trained VIM team leaders and team members. We will need such volunteers fairly soon, and for the foreseeable future. Please ask people who would be willing to volunteer to e-mail their details to the KS East Conference VIM/DR coordinator at: kseastvim@yahoo.com .

Right now we need the following information from each potential volunteer:

While details are still emerging, we anticipate that teams will be asked to be in country for a one to two week time period.

Haiti volunteer training
In preparation for sending teams to Haiti to respond to the Earthquake, we have designed a special training that will be presented by Conference Disaster Response/Volunteers In Mission workers including folks who have served either in Haiti and/or disaster response sites.  This training will be mandatory for Haiti Earthquake team members. The following trainings have been scheduled and additional trainings will be scheduled in the next few days.  Please e-mail the contact listed for the training that you plan to attend so that we can have an accurate count for training materials. Trainings will be offered in each district.  Please watch future updates for additional training dates. 

Health Kits
UMCOR is asking for health kits. A list of contents for health kits is available here. Remember, due to international shipping rules, contents must be only items listed…no variations.

New request from UMCOR: When making your health kits, please collect $2 per kit - $1 for the toothpaste that they will add and $1 to help with the shipping costs to Haiti. Please put all of these dollars in one seperate envelope along with your kits.

If your church would like to act as a drop off point, please contact Julie Pohl at: kseastvim@yahoo.com. Conference Staff will be contacting drop-off points this week to arrange for pick-up dates as needed. Conference disaster response workers will then pick kits up from the drop-off points and transport them to a central warehouse being provided by Church of the Resurrection, Leawood.  Once arriving at the central warehouse, COR volunteers will insert the toothpaste, and prepare the kits for shipping.  United Methodist Committee On Relief (UMCOR) will then pick the completed kits up from the central warehouse, which means that we do not have to pay for shipping to UMCOR.

Drop-off locations are:

We will inform you of additional drop off sites as they are secured.
 

Worship resources from GBOD and UMCOR
A bulletin insert for the Haiti disaster is located the right side of this page: http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/work/emergencies/ongoing/haitiearthquake/ on the UMCOR Web site.

Dean McIntyre at the General Board of Discipleship is compiling a growing list of resources for worship related to the Haiti disaster. The resources are available at http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?loc_id=739,1112,1198&act=nav_loc
 

Music video on Haiti emergency available
A music video, “Haiti, We Will Rise,” with information about donating to the UMCOR Advance is available at http://bit.ly/68ulGP.

Haiti Earthquake News
The latest news and information about the United Methodist response to the Haiti Earthquake can be found online at www.umc.org/haiti. This link provides all of the most up-to-date national and conference-wide news, blogs, video and audio stories from within the United Methodist Church. In addition, customizable print ads, web graphics, and other resources are available for downloading.

Here is a map of Haiti showing the location of the first earthquake, all larger aftershocks, and the areas most affected by the quakes.

Resources to help children cope after witnessing disaster from GBOD and UMCOR
Here are some resources for the churches in your conferences that will help leaders and parents help children navigate the images they are seeing in Haiti.

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PO Box 4187
Topeka, KS 66604-0187
tel: (785) 272-9111