Residents of Maryland Heights and Bridgeton have learned over the past week that help has a color, and that color is orange.
Hundreds of volunteers from Service International, an organization associated with Family Church in Chesterfield have taken to the tornado-damaged hillside over the past week to help victims in any way they can. Most often, that means providing hard labor to help clean-up tornado damage.
Jeff Perry founded Service International. While he is pastor at Family Church in Chesterfield, he has roots at Grace Church in Maryland Heights. And that's why the parking lot at Grace was filled this weekend, twenty-four hours before Sunday services.
Perry said, "We called Pastor Ron and Debbie Tucker and asked if we could triage out of their parking lot, and they immediately said yes."
Perry estimates Service International has utilized the services of 3,000 people since the tornadoes moved through on Good Friday. He said 1500 of those turned-out Saturday.
"What is present in people's hearts is a desire and willingness to help," said Perry. "What we do at Service International is put people in touch with an opportunity, whether they have a real extreme skill or they don't have skill."
Perry said it reflects the Golden Rule- love your neighbor as yourself.
"It's Christianity in action," he said.
The tornado clean-up represents an opportunity for Service International staffers and volunteers that is unusually close to home.
"It is," said Perry, "we spent two years in Katrina, we were in Sri Lanka for the tsunami; Kosovo after the war."
Perry said Service International will take a break on Sunday, so volunteers can get a break and so Grace officials can use their parking lot for church services. But they'll be back at it starting Monday at 10 a.m.
Perry said moving the debris off of private property is important in the recovery of tornado victims.
"Cities can't go onto private property," he said. "so this is why volunteers are beneficial. Because we can take the trees out with the Bobcats or the chain saws and just haul it. And this is what's beautiful is whatever range of skill set you have, it's all meaningful. And it really puts the homeowner back in touch with the possibility of real change."
Meanwhile in Bellefontaine Neighbors, United Way officials and volunteers spent Saturday morning delivering boxes of food to people whose homes were damaged or destroyed.
Rick Skinner is vice-president of the United Way Volunteer Center.
Skinner said, "Today we're partnering with Salvation Army, American Red Cross, AmeriCorps-St. Louis and St. Louis Area Foodbank to help those in need."
Skinner said their help is evolving, along with the need.
"United Way is here to make sure that people who need assistance get it. This is going to be a long recovery process and that's why our United Way 211 service is available 24 hours a day."
"And look for a listing of project opportunities that are on-going in the coming weeks and coming days to lend a hand right here in our region," said Skinner.