Disaster Response Archives

Arizona church ‘persevering in the spirit of love’ after devastating fire

Posted May 26th, 2023

The congregation and leadership of a Presbyterian church that was set on fire earlier this week in Douglas, Arizona, is determined not to give up despite major damage to the building.

Presbyterian Center staff joins with Mid-Kentucky Presbytery to gather hygiene kits

Posted May 24th, 2023

It began, as so much seems to begin these days, with an email. “The mission committee of Mid Kentucky Presbytery is ready to again collect Hygiene Kits for Presbyterian Disaster Assistance,” wrote Ruth Welch, coordinator of the project for the presbytery. “We hope the Presbyterian Center will join in collecting, sorting, and assembling these kits.”

Mid-Kentucky Presbytery engages in dialogue around the issue of gun violence

Posted May 23rd, 2023

Following yet another weekend marred by deadly gun violence in Louisville, Mid-Kentucky Presbytery opened its May 22 stated meeting at Briargate Presbyterian Church with a screening and small-group discussion in response to “Trigger: The Ripple Effect of Gun Violence,” a documentary directed by David Barnhart as part of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance’s Story Productions.

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance hears from the communities it has served

Posted May 22nd, 2023

Members of the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) National Response Team took a few hours out of their recent annual meeting to hear from representatives of two Colorado presbyteries that the team has served over the past few decades.

Tornadoes damage PC(USA) churches and destroy homes in the presbyteries of Ohio Valley and Arkansas

Posted April 4th, 2023

Friday’s tornadoes, which took the steeple off First Presbyterian Church in Martinsville, Indiana, and destroyed 200 homes in and around Sullivan, Indiana, came on top of tornadic destruction in and around Little Rock, Arkansas.

While not directly impacted by Friday’s tornadoes, Presbyterians in two Mississippi presbyteries are aiding their neighbors in need

Posted March 29th, 2023

When tornadoes leveled neighboring Rolling Fork, Mississippi, last Friday evening, it didn’t take long for members and friends of Leland Presbyterian Church to spring into action to help neighbors who’d lost everything.

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is responding to Cyclone Freddy

Posted March 17th, 2023

The Presbyterian Mission Agency is reaching out to its partners in southern Africa, where powerful Cyclone Freddy has struck twice, leaving hundreds of people dead.

Sowing seeds of hope

Posted March 7th, 2023

Paola Tognarelli’s [Tog-na-rē-le] connection to Mother Earth is sacred. Just like the bond she now shares with the other significant women in her life.

New hymn encourages Presbyterians to gather and deliver emergency kits

Posted February 22nd, 2023

Presbyterian pastor and hymn writer the Rev. Carolyn Winfrey Gillette has written a new hymn to encourage Presbyterians and others to gather and send hygiene and other kits to organizations that can put them in the hands of people who need them as the result of natural or human-caused disasters.

Gifts to the PC(USA)’s One Great Hour of Sharing support dignity to India’s most oppressed

Posted February 21st, 2023

While the economic and social status of women may be improving marginally worldwide, the lives of many women in India — like Smitha Krishnan — have remained virtually unchanged.