UPDATE: The Salvation Army Palm Beach Area Command is deploying a mobile kitchen and field team to Texas to assist with recovery efforts from Hurricane Harvey. The mobile canteen will be stocked with supplies by late Sunday afternoon and deployment with staff will take place by Monday morning.
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ORIGINAL STORY:
The Salvation Army of Palm Beach County has 139 volunteers ready to help with Hurricane Harvey relief efforts if they’re needed.
“There’s a lot of chaos in these situations and The Salvation Army has been trained in World War I, World War II and all the difficulties our country has faced to help and feed and be there,” said Sean Davis, development director for The Salvation Army of Palm Beach County.
The local branch hasn’t been deployed yet. So far, eight Salvation Army units in Florida have been sent out to assist people in Hurricane Harvey’s destructive path.
“People get to a point of desperation they never expected to be in and it can be very sudden,” Davis said.
The Salvation Army of Palm Beach County has a mobile canteen, which is equipped with a kitchen to prepare food and serve 500 people each meal, or up to 1,500 people every day. Volunteers feed both disaster victims and first responders.
“It’s amazing how tired people can become and they may not take care of themselves in disasters because the need is so great and the desperation so big that they don’t stop,” Davis said. “So we provide that ability for them to just take a rest, be able to be well fed and help people.”
Davis said the Midwest Food Bank would supply the food to be cooked each day.
The branch also has trailers that can be stocked with supplies and brought out to disaster zones.
The Salvation Army of Palm Beach County has the most trained volunteers in the state.