Longwood Church Volunteers Head to Oklahoma Disaster Zone
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
By: Matthew Peddie

May 21st, 2013 | WMFE- A team of relief workers from a Central Florida church is joining the recovery effort in the city of Moore, Oklahoma after Monday's deadly tornado.

By Tuesday officials had confirmed 24 dead and more than 230 people injured after winds of up to 190 miles per hour flattened buildings across a wide swath of the city.

A dozen volunteers from Northland Church in Longwood set off for Oklahoma Tuesday with a mobile kitchen.

Northland spokesman Robert Andrescik says the kitchen can serve over two-thousand meals per day.

"We only go where we're invited," says Andrescik.

“Journey Church, in Norman Oklahoma asked us to come alongside of their people, serve meals and help out," he says.

"All of our volunteers who go into these disaster situations are certified disaster responders, they go through extensive training, they know what to do when they get there," he says.

The volunteers are due to arrive in Oklahoma late Wednesday morning.

The last time the mobile kitchen was used was in the aftermath of super storm Sandy in New York.

"Particularly after Sandy, because there are so many New Yorkers here in Florida, we were inundated with requests from people who wanted to go," says Andrescik.

He says the church holds a disaster response weekend once a year at the church to train volunteers.