September 7, 2012

ELGIN, IL – Children's Disaster Services (CDS) is aiding children in Louisiana who have been displaced by Hurricane Isaac. Fifteen CDS volunteers were deployed to this heavily impacted area on Sept. 3.

As of Sept. 4, the group of CDS volunteers split up into two teams and have set up temporary child care centers in separate American Red Cross shelters. Fourteen volunteers are working in two larger shelters in the towns of Baker and Gonzales, La. R. Jan Thompson is serving as project manager, working out of Port Allen, La., to coordinate the response.

"They are very busy with children, taking the children in shifts," reports Roy Winter, associate executive director for Global Mission and Service and Brethren Disaster Ministries. "Jan is talking with RC (the Red Cross) about the need for additional volunteers." The CDS volunteers have been staying in a Red Cross staff shelter set up in a filming studio, Winter said. "Everything is very fluid and changing quickly," he added.

"Please keep our volunteers and all disaster survivors – especially the littlest ones – in your prayers," said CDS on the program's Facebook page.

Most recently, CDS volunteers spent nine days in August caring for children affected by fires in Oklahoma. CDS is a Church of the Brethren ministry that has been meeting the needs of children since 1980.

Working cooperatively with FEMA and the American Red Cross, CDS provides trained and certified volunteers to set up child care centers in shelters and disaster assistance centers. Specially trained to respond to traumatized children, CDS volunteers provide a calm, safe, and reassuring presence in the midst of the chaos that follows disasters.

Updates from CDS are posted regularly at http://www.facebook.com/cds.cob . Go to http://www.brethren.org/cds for more about CDS and a list of fall workshops to train more CDS volunteers at a variety of locations around the country.

The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to continuing the work of Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its faith in community. The denomination is based in the Anabaptist and Pietist faith traditions and is one of the three Historic Peace Churches. It celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2008. It counts some 123,000 members across the United States and Puerto Rico, and has missions and sister churches in Nigeria, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and India.

Newsline: Church of the Brethren New Service