If you’ve been reading Life With Dee for any length of time you’ve likely seen one or more of my monthly Grocery Haul posts. My daughter and I usually shop together once a month in the city and make a day of it. You can see my last Grocery Haul post here. Well, have I got a grocery haul to tell you about!
Last Wednesday afternoon, David rushed into the house unexpectedly and said he had been asked to load up a couple of trailers worth of supplies and drive them down to the Houston area. The company he works for has locations in Channelview, Beaumont and Port Arthur and the company owners wanted to get supplies to their employees as soon as possible.
I decided to go with him. He and his assistant spent several hours purchasing groceries and other supplies. A couple of friends showed up to help, too. They loaded 43 carts at Walmart! David finally got home for dinner around 9 p.m.
We quickly packed, finished up some things around home and finally got to bed around midnight. It would have been a little earlier if our ancient dryer hadn’t chosen that night to die. Fortunately I was still up and smelled it before it caught fire. Of course the clothes weren’t quite dry so I had to put them on the wooden drying rack I have in our guest room. Which reminds me…they are still there. Yes, we are living in chaos lately.
Anyway, we got up at 4 a.m., left by 4:30 and headed to Walmart to pick up milk and eggs before heading out. Now, if you know me very well, you likely know I don’t shop at Walmart. In fact, I hadn’t been in our local Walmart for close to 10 years. However, I was willing to make an exception for this, especially since Walmart had refunded the sales tax on the purchases David made the night before. We know one of the managers there and she also recruited cart pushers to help load all those supplies into the trailers. I may not be a fan of the Walmart corporation but I definitely want to give credit where credit is due.
I stayed with the trucks and trailers after we brought out all the milk and the guys went back for the eggs. It was a little eerie sitting in a darkened Walmart parking lot with coyotes howling nearby. It felt a bit like a David Lynch movie.
We then filled up gas cans with 36 gallons worth of gasoline and headed out of town. We had heard that gas might be hard to come by so we topped off our tanks several times on the way down just to be sure we would have enough to get back without having to use any that we were bringing with us.
We brought close to $8000 worth of supplies with us and two other company locations brought pickup trucks full as well. We unloaded as quickly as we could and it still took a couple of hours. I tried to organize the supplies as best I could but it was a LOT of stuff!
As soon as we got everything unloaded we headed back toward home. We were all three exhausted so we stopped about an hour South of Dallas, checked into a hotel, went out for dinner and then crashed for the night. We got back to town mid-afternoon Friday, stopped at Sears to buy a new dryer and then headed home where David installed the new dryer right away. Since it was Labor Day weekend we were able to get a great deal on the dryer.
I am beyond grateful that David works for a company that cares so much for its employees. They gave him no limit on what he could spend on supplies. They have already sent some emergency funds to the 16 employees who suffered home damage/flooding. They have also set up an employee donation fund and are matching it dollar for dollar.
I also want to give a shout-out to David’s assistant, Dan, who spent several hours helping him buy the supplies and then drove one of the trucks and trailers to Houston with us. He then worked all weekend afterwards.
We continue to hold the people affected by Hurricane Harvey in our thoughts and prayers and are now watching and praying for those in the path of Hurricane Irma.
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Here’s How You Can Help People Affected by Harvey
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
United Methodist Committee on Relief
Well, that answered my question from this afternoon!! Glad y’all were able to get them the supplies they needed. Davids company is indeed to be commended for their generosity to their employees. Not that many companies like that anymore!!
While I’m at it, can I give a shout out to UMCOR? They are the United Methodist Disaster relief organization. I learned about them shortly after Katrina. They started within a week of the receded water handing out big buckets filled with cleaning supplies designed for cleaning after a flood. For free. They go up and down streets doing that in obviously flooded out areas without too much damage. They do this while they set up their offices for repairing damaged homes. They repair homes, doing the work with volunteers, and paying for supplies. They started just weeks after Katrina and left New Orleans 4 years later, when their repair list was complete. Not one single penny of money donated directly to UMCOR goes for anything but repairs and supplies. The denomination pays all administration costs out of their apportionment. So, if you choose to donate money directly to UMCOR, you can be sure it’s going directly to hurting people. They don’t preach or proselytize. It’s open to everyone, no matter of your religion or race or immigration status. I do believe they offer some priority to the elderly and disabled. Both of my sons and several friends made at least two volunteer trips in the first two years, and others continued on into years three and four. I’ve been extremely impressed with what I’ve seen, and how they operate. I’m sure there are other organizations equally as good, but I’m only saying I’ve watched these folks, so I KNOW what good work they do. And let’s keep both Harvey victims and Irma victims and the so many more that are likely to come in Florida, in our prayers.
Thanks for the information about UMCOR. I’ll add their link to this post!
I’m sure the people who got those supplies really appreciated them.
One of the female dispatchers David spoke with was so grateful that we’d included women’s underwear. She spent 7 days in the dispatch offices.
That is quite a haul! I don’t think that would have fit in the Prius. 😉
Ha! I don’t think so. 😉