Berlin, VT– 11 months later, Vermonters are still hard at work rebuilding after last summer’s floods. Central Vermont organization ‘Hope Coalition’ aims to restore and rebuild homes, and it just got a big donation to help out many families who fell victim to July’s floods.
Dozens of beds, dressers, rugs, kitchen sets, and heating and cooling units were delivered to a Berlin warehouse Tuesday, to replace just some of the items lost to the floodwaters last summer.
The furniture was donated to Hope Coalition by ‘Compassion Coalition’ based out of Utica, NY, according to Vermont Emergency Management. The Green Mountain State group has been helping families since the disaster, but there’s still more work to do.
“It has been a long process of trying to help people with flood recovery. A lot of the real building work, the nuts and bolts of the real building work, couldn’t really start until September, October, and then of course winter set in on us,” noted Daniel Molind, the chairman of Hope Coalition.
Inside the state-owned warehouse is about half a million dollar’s worth of items. It came in Tuesday morning, with help from the ‘Mennonite Disaster Service.’ Everyone unloaded two tractor trailer loads of items, to be brought to families in need throughout Vermont.
Daniel Molind says he wants to make sure flood victims are helped.
“It’s very hard being a flood survivor,” said Molind. “Everybody has switched gears now, and it’s summertime, and everything is okay, and the ground isn’t muddy anymore. I think a lot of flood survivors feel they have been forgotten. The big thing for us, when our team shows up, is just to show them a little bit of love and let them know they are seen and recognize that they have unmet needs.”
The group is still striving to do a lot more than give away household items.
“Our goal is to rebuild about 50 homes this summer,” said Molind.
On top of that goal, Molind said Hope Coalition has already built and restored 119 homes in Central Vermont, helping 800 families so far.