Minnesota Volunteers Deployed To Louisiana For Hurricane Ida Relief
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - Minnesotans are making a difference in Hurricane Ida relief efforts.
Volunteers have been in Louisiana all month, and more were deployed Sunday. A team from the Salvation Army left from Roseville headed to Louisiana.
"My mom was born and raised in Louisiana, so this is very personal for me because it's all people she was raised with and grew up with, so it's kind of like going down to take care of my family's people," said Rebecca Snapp.
They'll be taking over a mobile feeding unit for two weeks providing food, water, and basic services to victims of Ida.
Snapp admits that she and her team are anxious about the difficult things they're going to see, but a deployment like this is why they sign up to volunteer.
"That's what [hurricane victims] say to us, 'you came from Minnesota to help us?'" said Susan Marsh. "And yeah, that's what we do. We go help people in need."
Snapp, Marsh, and the other volunteers will be relieving already-deployed emergency workers.
There are also Minnesotans volunteering for the Red Cross who have been in Louisiana for all of September working 14-hour days.
"We've got to remove the trees, fix the poles, put the wires up," said Nathan Moscho, a volunteer from Cold Spring. "Imagine going a week without air conditioning or TV or cell phone."
The group that spoke to WCCO misses their families, but they say they've formed a sort of family with each other and those they're helping.
"You meet amazing people with stories and the resilience of these people and the strength, that gives you a lot more appreciation for what we have back home," Moscho said. "You go home a better person."
Moscho and the other volunteers have all deployed south for hurricane relief in the past. They say it's a passion, and it can even be hard to leave.
