How You Can Help Right Now

The DaSilva family experienced a house fire last week with extensive fire and water damage to their home and possessions. The family is fine (and so are the guinea pigs), but they are looking at being out of their house for up to a year during the restoration process. Many of you have reached out with love and support, offered your help, or donated to the family’s Go Fund Me. The DaSilvas are so grateful to be held in community and appreciate all of you.

Sara and I talked this morning about how folks at Northwoods can best help her family in the short and long term. Things are still a work in progress, and a big priority right now is to find a more permanent housing situation for the interim. Once they are a bit further down the road, they will be in a better position to know what kinds of specific task help they might need, as well as material help. They are still figuring out what they might need, but we identified two things that you can help with right now:

Thank You Card Management: Sara told me she has a lot of people to thank—which means she’s got a lot of thank-you notes to write. She could use our help with this. There are a couple of needs:

  1. Note-writers needed: Can you write out some think-you notes? Sara can provide the text, but the thought of writing the same thing 150+ times is daunting in the best of circumstances. Sara wants to sign and address the notes but can take all the help she can get with the actual writing. There will be notecards at church this Sunday. Please stop by the church office and take some home with you this week. (If you do, please put your name on the volunteer list, along with how many cards you took. There will be copies of suggested text available to take as well.)
  2. Project Management: It would be a great help to Sara if someone could help organize the note-writing process and keep track of who has received notes, etc. If that’s you, please reach out to Sara directly.

Donation of Personal and Household Items: Thank you to those who have offered to donate furniture and other items. We ask that you not bring items up to the church at this time. Until the DaSilvas are a bit further down the road, they aren’t in a position to know what they might need, and Northwoods has limited storage capacity as well.

Since Sara and Marco are both juggling a lot of logistical tasks, we came up with a system for folks who want to make available furniture, kitchen and household items, etc. If you have something that you wish to offer the DaSilva family, please follow these steps to help keep things manageable for the family:

  1. Take a picture of the item or items you wish to offer.
  2. Put that picture in one of the subfolders in this Google Drive folder. (There is a separate place for furniture, household items, kitchen items, and personal items.)
  3. Identify yourself: One way to do this is to rename the picture in Google Drive with your name. If you prefer, you can write your name in big letters on a piece of paper and include it in the picture instead. The goal is to identify who Sara should contact if the item is something that would be useful to the family.
  4. That’s it! The DaSilvas will look through the offered items at the time that makes sense for them, and they will reach out if they can use them.

The most beautiful thing about church community (any healthy, loving community) is the ways we support each other. When we care about each other, we care for each other. Thank you for being a part of Northwoods’ greatest strength.