When Gulf Coast Disaster Relief founder Tammy Larson saw the news of tornadoes in the Covington, Jones, and Jasper County areas that wreaked havoc on each community, she knew she had to get a team down immediately. For her, it was personal.
“Each storm is a little different and presents a unique aspect to everything we do. For me, this one has been a bit different. I’ve cried with this one because it is home for me,” said Larson.
Larson grew up in the Pine Belt, specifically the Jones County community before she and her husband moved to New Orleans, Louisiana.
Back in 2016, she and her family began volunteering when Baton Rouge suffered over one billion dollars worth of damage to severe flooding.
“We got involved with volunteering in 2016 when Baton Rouge was flooded. They called it a ‘1,000-year flood’ and it affected around 13 parishes. It was astronomical as to what it did to the state. My husband’s [Steven Larson] hometown was affected by this. A lot of the community is under-served, and when dealing with larger charities, they send their food trucks into those communities, but they don’t set up shelters into those communities where you can get personal hygiene and clean up items that you need. So, when this flood happened, it was devastating and no one had vehicles because every vehicle was underwater.”
“We decided our mission with our group would be to go into smaller communities and we would serve those communities because of the need there,” explained Larson.
Since the flood in Baton Rouge, Larson and her family have helped communities from different states despite moving from New Orleans to Huntsville, Alabama.
“Hurricane Harvey hit Houston and we were in the middle of getting transferred to Huntsville. My husband was going back-and-forth between places, and I was trying to sell our house in Louisiana. I told him that we couldn’t get involved, but I can’t tell people ‘no.’ We didn’t get involved physically, but we did logistically. We started facilitating supply deliveries from the east coast to Houston. What we would do is people would contact us and we would set up a point of contact to help on the other end. We set up a facility for donations to come through and that the facilities could handle everything.”
Gulf Coast Disaster Relief utilizes working with local churches in each community since most churches know the heartbeat of community needs.
“We work with churches because they know the heartbeat of their community, so we connect with them. I can go into a community and not know anything about it because I don’t know anyone in the community.”
Along with churches, the Disaster Assistance Ministry ran by President and CEO Mike Baumgartner who is affiliated with the Church of Christ has been assisting with disaster relief since 2008. Their team has financially backed meals, including the ones being handed out in the Pine Belt area during this disaster.
Since becoming a registered non-profit organization, Larson and Gulf Coast Disaster Relief have worked other disasters such as Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael. During their trip to Panama City after Hurricane Michael, they worked over 4,000 minutes, handing out 4,899 meals.
On this trip, Larson expects to hand out over 1,500 meals and has volunteers from neighboring states to help with cleanup in devastated areas.
“On set up day [Thursday] we served 320 meals. Friday we are scheduled to do 500 meals and will do that each day [Friday, Saturday, and Sunday]. Church of Christ of Decatur [Alabama] has a team called ‘Crisis Response’ and they are here to do debris removal. There is a church from Cookeville, Tennessee that is also coming in tonight to volunteer. We met them about a month ago when we came up to help them with disaster relief. They wanted to help us since we helped them,” said Larson.
Gulf Coast Disaster Relief has a slogan that resides on each shirt and sticker that reads, “#ifyoucanwhydontyou.”
“People always ask why do you do this, and I tell them “if you can, why don’t you.” That is what we live by.”
“The people I’m working with down here and will be delivering meals to are my friends that I graduated and grew up with that still live here and their homes are gone. There is a huge need here, so here we are. Because I can, I’m doing it.”
To find out how you can help with Gulf Coast Disaster Relief or to reach out to Tammy Larson, contact their Facebook page, “Gulf Coast Disaster Relief.” To inquire about Disaster Assistance Ministry, you can reach out via their website here.