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City Center Church delivers donations to victims of Hurricane Ida

city center church in nola.jpg
Posted at 2:26 AM, Sep 09, 2021
and last updated 2021-09-09 06:44:06-04

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — City Center Church in Lenexa, Kansas, filled a truck in less than 24 hours with donations to deliver to those in Louisiana affected by Hurricane Ida.

“With your help, with the help of social media, we were able to fill a truck up in less than 48 hours,” church member Joe Sabo said.

KSHB 41 News first visited City Center Church on Saturday when members first asked for donations to help those in the St. Tammany Parish community in Louisiana.

The Pastors and members say their faith led them to St. Tammany Parish.

And community response to the call for donations was outstanding.

“It was a steady stream of traffic of people that continued to pull into the church of people from Liberty, Missouri, from Ottawa, Kansas. People were driving 80 miles to bring stuff and it was absolutely amazing," Sabo said.

Offering a helping hand is second nature.

“It’s horrifying because you know there were lives that were lost, you know there were people who lost absolutely everything, and your immediate impulse is how can I help?,” said Phil Stacey, Pastor of Worship and Groups at City Center Church.

David Horchar, a resident of St. Tammany Parish, received some of the church's collected donations.

“Those in our community will definitely have something to eat,” Horchar said.

He said his community is far from recovery.

“My street alone was nearly impassable until yesterday. The community had to come together to cut the trees out, remove power lines. The devastation in the neighborhood was so widespread,” Horchar said.

However, now a community hurting can start to heal thanks to the kindness from strangers nearly 900 miles away.

“How can there not be such a difference when you have empty shelves and you have shelves that are spilling over. They didn’t just fill the cup, they filled our cup over the edges,” said Dena Grosart, Executive Director of the Samaritan Center in St. Tammany Parish.

Now, back home in Kansas City, Pastors at City Center Church say victims of Hurricane Ida still need help and their work is far from over.

“Remember these people that are down there are not going to have life as usual for years, so we can’t just move on and think that life is fine,” said outreach pastor Luke Weese.