Waterford Volunteers in Arkansas After Tornado

POSTED: 04/29/14, 2:06 PM EDT
By Carol Hopkins, The Oakland Press

DRAW Disaster Relief at Work - ArkansasThree Oakland County volunteers climbed into a car Monday and drove through the night to help victims of Sunday’s Arkansas tornado.

Greg Martin, head of Waterford-based DRAW, Disaster Relief at Work, a grassroots, first-responders aid organization, arrived in Vilonia, Arkansas, at 2 a.m. on Tuesday, April 29.

“We were up at 6 a.m. handing out supplies,” said Martin of Clarkston. “It looks pretty bad.”

He said the people who received the items — buckets filled with toiletries, patching and repair items and cleaning products — were “numb.”

About 3,000 homes were destroyed during a large tornado that hit Vilonia and Mayflower, small communities located northwest of Little Rock, on Sunday. At least 15 died in the storm.

Martin and his team, Zandra Hudson and Sam Hickey, both also from Clarkston, were planning to visit other hard-hit communities. Additional DRAW volunteers and supplies arrive later in the week, officials said.

Interested donors can purchase a bucket from DRAW’s “Bucket List,” make a general monetary donation, or physically help fill buckets.

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