Tornado Victims Need Your Help

Local Pastor Adrienne Holmes (featured in our May newsletter) is spearheading efforts to meet the needs of our Indianapolis neighbors who lost everything in last weekend’s tornado, which ripped apart an apartment complex at 38th and Mitthoefer. Admirals Bay Residents Phillip and Lorene Graves have volunteered to pick up donations from the Geist area and transport them to Bell’s Chapel Church.

The victims, many uninsured, are in desperate need of basic items including:

• diapers
• non-perishable food items (tuna packs, peanut butter, etc.)
• clothing (mens, womens and children’s)
• towels
• bedding
• furniture
• Wal-mart (or other store) gift cards

Items may be dropped off between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. at:
Bell’s Chapel church, 10002 East 42nd Street, Indianapolis (NE corner of 42 & Mitthoeffer),

or you may contact Lorene and Phillip Graves at 695-1058 to arrange pick up or drop off of donated items.

Following is an email sent by Lorene Graves, explaining what she witnessed as she dropped off some furniture to tornado victims:

One of my neighbors, Bishop Adrienne Holmes, heads a church just 5 miles from our house, which I visit to improve my perspective into how “close to the edge” so many Indy residents live. I visited her church today for a huge dose of perspective. Bell’s Chapel is less than 1/2 mile from the Apartment complex that was devastated during last Friday’s storm. Bishop Adrienne and her church are in overdrive, in their familiar role of supporting the neighborhood. Today when I dropped off a load of baby furniture, it was being claimed by a storm victim even before we even finished unloading our haul. I saw that Bishop Adrienne was barefoot and learned that she’d just given her shoes to another storm-victim.

The need is great for hundreds of mostly uninsured families, as they struggle to get back on their feet, or just survive.