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World Vision Insider / May 6, 1999
World Vision Aids Midwest Tornado Victims
OKLAHOMA CITY — Thousands of homes, churches, and businesses were destroyed in Monday's tornadoes, which
began in southwest Oklahoma before moving northeast to Oklahoma City and the Tulsa area. A later band of twisters
hit neighboring Kansas.
As of Tuesday afternoon, it appears that more than 50 Midwest residents perished and thousands lost their homes in
the fury of the twisters—said to be some of the most powerful ever recorded.
World Vision’s initial relief response began Tuesday and is focused on providing and distributing relief supplies to
support and equip churches in the Oklahoma City area to provide emergency/disaster response.
Three truck-loads of clothing, shoes, personal care items, blankets, and clean-up equipment, including gloves,
chainsaws, mops and cleansers will arrive in Oklahoma on Friday. The supplies, shipped from World Vision’s Inter-
national Distribution Center in Pittsburgh, total $360,950 in value. Hobby Lobby Creative Center, a long-time World
Vision donor, has donated 50,000 square feet of warehouse space in Oklahoma City to serve as World Vision’s relief
headquarters and the staging area for the distribution of relief supplies to local churches and ministry partners.
As the needs in Oklahoma City and Wichita, Kansas are assessed in the coming days, World Vision will determine
if expanding its response to a second phase is necessary. This second phase would involve volunteer recruitment
and mobilization for clean-up efforts and expanded distribution of relief supplies for up to an additional four weeks.
World Vision has responded in recent years to domestic disasters, including Hurricane Andrew, which devastated
Florida in 1992, the Midwest floods of 1993, and the 1997 Red River Valley floods.
Please pray for families who lost loved ones to the storms and for those whose homes were destroyed.
If you would like more information or wish to donate to the relief effort, please call 800-777-1229.
Update on Relief Distributions for Kosovar Refugees
World Vision’s relief distributions in Albania and Montenegro target two key areas of need among Kosovar refugees:
food and personal care items.
Update on Montenegro: To assist the 65,000 refugees in Montenegro, World Vision has distributed the following in
the last month:
Food items:
1,137 gallons of milk.
1,200 packets of bread rusks.
440 pounds of flour.
880 pounds of yeast.
8,174 tins of fish.
824 tins of beef.
960 tins of pate.
645 family food packs.
Personal Care items:
480 blankets.
90 packets of Pampers diapers.
477 quarts of hand soap.
20 cartons of body soap.
887 quarts of shampoo.
437 toothbrushes.
1,657 tubes of toothpaste.
880 rolls of toilet paper.
Update on Albania: Thousands of refugees continue to pour into Albania, bringing the total number of refugees in this,
the poorest country in Europe, to more than 406,000.
Since just last Saturday, World Vision has distributed the following in Vlore, Albania:
Weekly food kits for 200 host families.
Monthly baby kits for 130 host families.
Mattresses for 500 refugees staying at the Vlore Evangelical Church collective center.
Blankets for 150 refugees at the Vlore transit center.
Bed sheets for 300 refugees at a collective center.
Hygiene and baby kits for 200 host families.
Please remember the Kosovar refugees in your prayers.
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