By Roger Cowles

For the Port Arthur News

It didn’t matter which Mid-County city you visited Saturday. Many people in each of them were volunteering their time to help others who were devastated by floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey’s record deluge.

In Port Neches, members of the state champion baseball team were up early to distribute free cleaning supplies at the PN-G baseball field. In Nederland, visiting volunteers from North Carolina were preparing meals for an astonishing 16,000 people. In Groves, a command center was dispatching work crews to wherever they were needed and other volunteers from out of town were cooking for the National Guard.

Finding teenagers up and ready to work as a volunteer early on a Saturday morning may be rare in most places, but players from the PN-G state champion baseball team are not just any group of teens.

“They showed up at 7:45 this morning to partner up with my hometown and get our community the supplies that they need,” Scott Carter, head baseball coach at PN-G, said. Coach Carter’s sister, Amy McGee, and a number of her associates from Jonesboro, Louisiana, brought a lot of supplies to distribute to anyone in need from flood damage.

“I have some hometown friends from back in Louisiana who put together a care package for everybody. They brought down water, box fans, dog food, they brought more stuff than I can explain. We have a lot of food to pass out,” Coach Carter said.

The answer was easy for McGee when the question was raised about why anyone would drive all night to give away supplies in a disaster area.

“Because we’re supposed to help each other,” she said. “We’re supposed to have brotherly love for everybody. And that’s what we’re doing.”

Brotherly love was also on display across the tracks in Nederland, where a team of 60 volunteers from the North Carolina Baptist Men and North Carolina Baptists on Mission were preparing meals for residents and responders throughout the area. They brought a large trailer that houses an industrial kitchen to the parking lot of First Baptist Church-Nederland. Crews are changed out every week.

“Our crew is working 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.,” Paul McCarthy, spokesperson, said. He said they had been preparing 18,000 meals each day, but it was down a little to 16,000 on Saturday.

“The Red Cross loads it up and takes it to the communities twice a day,” he said. “We have a drive through where local folks can come twice a day, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 to 6 p.m. We’ve been averaging 1,200 a day we hand them out water and any kind of grub and a little prayer,” he said.

A Baptist church in Groves was also ground zero for volunteer activity, both from visitors and local people helping those who were swamped by the floodwaters.

“We saw that the need was here and we wanted to help our neighbors and share the love of Christ. We have a connection with Pastor Joe (Worley) here and we knew they were doing a great work so we decided to come and join in,” Kay Robinson, a member of West Conroe Baptist Church volunteering in Groves, said.

“We’ve also been feeding the National Guard, about 200 of them,” she said.

The West Conroe church has a disaster response team that operates trailer that contains a kitchen and other facilities.

“I think everyone has been affected in some way. Either they got water in their house or they’re housing someone who got water in their house,” Robinson said.

The menu for the evening was lasagna and greet beans. They were preparing to feed about 500.

Big glass doors lead from the trailer into the Family Life Center at FBC Groves. Inside, Erin Byrd and Jillian Hunt, church members, man the command center for restoration projects.

“We’re getting geared up to continue with renovations. We have almost a dozen crews out working. Each crew has between five and 10 guys helping people with what they’re going through,” Dustin Byrd, student pastor at the church, said.

“The thing people don’t understand is how amazing this community has been at coming back together. We’re not playing the victim card; we’re working to fix it. We’re doing everything we can do to be self sufficient and take care of this ourselves. The community is working together amazingly,” he said.