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June 11, 2008

Red Cross seeks donations, customers for yard sale

Alexander Cain

Watching television news reports about someone losing a home or loved one can be hard.

Being the person that has to be there at the sight of a disaster or tragedy can be even harder.

Every year, every month, every week and every day whenever or wherever needed, the American Red Cross provides assistance to victims of disasters such as home fires, floods or tornados — and the Milledgeville chapter of the Red Cross, the Oconee Valley American Red Cross Service Center, is no different.

“We had only one fire in May [that we responded to] and so far we’ve had none in June,” OVRC Director Billie Brown said.

They’re known as the Disaster Action Team, or DAT, and in the case of the OVRC, which is headquartered on North Jefferson Street, the DAT is composed of selfless volunteers from Baldwin, Putnam, Washington, Wilkinson and Hancock counties.

When tornados ravaged portions of Georgia on Mother’s Day, OVRC volunteers were there.

When hail and severe rain and winds struck in Baldwin County only a short time later, OVRC volunteers were also there.

Now as the OVRC continues its daily mission of providing comfort and a caring hand to those in need, the nonprofit organization is giving the Milledgeville community a chance to give back to and support such an important part of the Red Cross.

“We will be having a yard sale on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.,” Brown said. “Someone had donated some office equipment to us, and it included office furniture and chairs. We decided we would go ahead and have another yard sale to help benefit our disaster relief services.”

The last yard sale to benefit disaster relief was held in October, an event that generally occurs only once a year, according to Brown.

“With the Macon Mother’s Day tornados, they were categorized as level 4, which does a lot of damage. I think everyone did a phenomenal job when you consider that everything was going on almost at once. I’m very proud of our volunteers. We had them in the Emergency Response Vehicles, or ERVs, giving food to people whose kitchens had been blown away,” Brown said.

The center is accepting donations for the yard sale through Friday.

“We’ll have our volunteers there, some of which were in Macon, grilling hotdogs and selling soda drinks. Each yard sale has its own strength but we’ll probably only hold one once a year.”

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