The smiling fourth-grade student said, “There were two big hurricanes and lots of people need our help, and more hurricanes are coming!” Nadine, and her friend Karla, wanted to do something to help our neighbors who have lost so much due to the recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida.
The Vail Serves Vail Committee, a sub-committee of the Vail Religious Council, also wanted to help. At their monthly meeting, ideas were discussed of how the students and their families could be involved in helping those who had been so greatly impacted by these disasters. A religious leader brought up the idea of gathering cleaning supplies and putting them in five-gallon buckets. The committee members enthusiastically embraced the idea! Superintendent Calvin Baker approved the worthy project and “A Drop in the Bucket” was born. The council knew this was time sensitive, so everyone on the committee volunteered for certain aspects of the humanitarian project and went to work! To help spread the word, students made flyers listing the needed cleaning products and sent them out to local faith-based organizations, Vail School District teachers announced the project in classes, and the Vail Religious Council posted the project on a volunteer website called JustServe.org.
On Thursday night, September 22nd, just over one week after the idea had been presented at the Vail Serves Vail Committee meeting, the community got together at the Vail Innovation Center in Vail and filled the buckets. One religious congregation took the lead in acquiring 50 donated five-gallon buckets that would hold the cleaning supplies. Members of several other congregations and the local community donated the cleaning supplies including gloves, masks, sponges, disinfectant spray, insect repellent, soaps, etc. Each bucket contained over $65 worth of cleaning supplies. To get the buckets to hurricane victims, another congregation arranged for the transportation of the buckets.
There were so many smiles as the buckets were assembled and prepared for distribution to flood victims to help assist them as they recover and start to rebuild. Although it might seem like a drop in the bucket, as the lights went out at the Vail Innovation Center, somehow the Vail community was strengthened as well.
Steven and Carol Langford are the Directors of Public Affairs for the Tucson Arizona Rincon Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
