Category: St. Clair News

Story by Carol Pappas
Photos by Susan Wall and Arline Lynch

On a brisk Saturday morning this fall, a group of foster parents gathered in a Pell City parking lot to say their goodbyes. In their care had been 25 puppies  — loved, nurtured, protected – as if they were their own.

Just like a sleeping infant finds solace in the crook of a strong, comforting arm, these wide-eyed puppies had found their haven, if only for a little while. On this November morning, they were about to find even more. Tears and smiles intermingled as farewells and a final hug marked the occasion. It was time, time to head to their permanent, “forever home.”

The same scene plays out each month as ASPCI, Animal Shelter of Pell City Inc. volunteers give up their precious cargo for what they know will become the life their four-footed friends deserve.

The road to this point

Happy endings weren’t always the case in St. Clair County for dogs and cats, puppies and kittens. Turn back the clock a couple of decades, and there was no animal shelter, no caring group to come to the rescue.

But a handful of persevering St. Clair Countians pushed, prodded, rolled up their sleeves and went to work to establish a safe place and a system to take care of them. It took different forms in the early years, but it finally emerged from their dreams and into a real animal shelter built in Pell City with the dollars they raised. And ASPCI was born.

The organization is still evolving. It no longer is affiliated with the shelter they built, manned and enhanced. They have moved exclusively to the original goal – finding as many forever homes as they can for the county’s animal population.

“The things we did inside that building that brought pleasure to our heart is what we’re doing now,” said Barbara Wallace, the organization’s president.

Operating from an administrative office on US 231 South in Pell City, they welcome volunteers on board, recruit foster parents, sell spay and neutering certificates and best of all, they help find forever homes through other shelters with the same caring goal.

“The thing I am proudest of is that the group that started the shelter has stayed together,” said Sandra Embry, a former president, memorial chairman and one of the early movers and shakers to get the job done. “There has never been any disagreement between any of us. This group stayed together for 15 years, and that’s pretty remarkable.”

There is no mistaking Embry’s passion. From the thousands of handwritten thank you notes to adopters and contributors she must have written over the years to the sound of her words as she speaks, her overriding love of animals is ever present. “They have no voice. We’re their voice. That’s what it comes down to.”

It’s difficult to tell her passion from that of Sylvia Martin. She and Karen Thibado helped found the fundraising gala, Fur Ball, now called Mardi Paws Fur Ball. It is the organization’s major fundraiser and has become one of the signature social events of the year. Her handiwork was seen in Doo Dah Day, which became Paws in the Park – an outdoor celebration of people’s precious pets and an opportunity to raise awareness about those animals who were not so lucky.

When Martin saw a need, she set about to fill it. In the 1970s, the lakeside area in which she lived was a destination point for abandoning dogs because it wasn’t developed as much. “My limit was six (dogs). I kept six – all strays except two,” Martin said. “There wasn’t any program about spaying and neutering. There wasn’t a leash law.”

Over the years, that all changed, and Martin and others were a part of that group that brought the improvements about. They pushed for education programs, spaying and neutering and enforced laws. “It was a community effort,” she said, noting that it took “years and years of people donating time and money. Everybody involved had a real love for animals.”

Others came on board, trading day jobs and management positions for a broom or mop or manning the phones. Jo Mitchell and husband Marty Kollmorgen were among them. Mitchell’s husband was an executive, a division manager with AT&T, but it was not unusual to spot him cleaning kennels and doing what needed to be done. After Mitchell retired, she became more and more involved and has served as treasurer since 2006.

Wallace, a friend of Mitchell’s, got involved the same way. After her retirement and a time of caretaking for her mother, who was ill, she joined the organization. Paws in the Park planning was under way at the time. “I needed something to do, and they needed help,” Wallace recalled. “It went from there. I enjoy it.”

Every organization needs an historian. Arline Lynch, camera in hand, has been instrumental in preserving the history of people and events that marked the success of ASPCI over the years through her photographs. Her remembrances are especially helpful in ensuring that the long list of people who wrote this success story aren’t forgotten. “So many have helped through the years and continue to do so,” she said.

It is impossible to name them all. Their stories are not unusual. It is one of identifying needs and working to make sure they are fulfilled.

Arlene Johnson was involved at the beginning of the organization’s nonprofit status in 1995. “I was recruited by the first President, Herb Doynow. Herb and his wife, Billie, (both now deceased) were neighbors in the Seddon Point area where I lived at the time,” Johnson said. Herb and his wife had several cats who were taken care of at Dr. Galen Sims at Cropwell Small Animal Hospital. The Doynows learned of the need for a local shelter from Galen as there was no shelter anywhere in St. Clair County.”

At the time, local animals taken into custody by animal control officers were delivered to the Birmingham pound. Herb had a home-based business and his wife provided his office support, and they filed the first 501c3 papers with the help of Jan and Charles Trotter. 

“Our first board consisted of Herb as president, Galen as vice president, Billie as treasurer, and me as secretary. I served two three-year terms as president the first period between 2000 and 2003.” She also served as vice president, treasurer, secretary, newsletter chair and fundraising chair. “Pat Tucker was the president prior to me and was instrumental in gathering local support and improving the fundraising aspect of our mission. She remained active in ASPCI business and fundraising until moving back to Georgia to be near her mother about five years ago,” Johnson said.

In 2000, the shelter opened on a piece of property across from St. Clair County Airport. The organization that had started out as a rescue organization had to meet the immediate needs of the community as an intake facility for the county and cities in St. Clair County and adjacent communities who were legally required to operate or contract for a pound.  So, through the commitment of the Pell City Council, St. Clair County Commission, and many local business supporters, including the Airport Authority, Alabama Power, Goodgame Company, many other local small businesses, all local veterinarians, several individuals and regional and national animal foundations, funds were secured to build, furnish and operate the facility.

“The most challenging aspect was the first 10 years of operation when the intake from animal control officers as well as the animals surrendered from their owners grew from about 300 animals a month to at a peak of over 800 a month,” Johnson said. “The shelter facility had to grow with more workers, volunteers and space to handle the incoming animal population. Most citizens don’t realize the volume of unwanted animals in their community, but many households with animals contribute to the problem by not spaying and neutering their pets.”

Gene Morris, a telephone company officer, well remembers those early years and the impact of the group. He joined the board shortly after 2000 and served as treasurer for many years. “Several executive level people were running the group for free as a good service to the community. It wasn’t long before the community saw very few stray animals.”

Mission Continues

Today ASPCI’s mission remains strong – “to rescue/adopt as many as possible, offer low-cost spay-neuter certificates, and to remain visible and have a voice in the community,” Johnson said. They take in animals from other shelters, get their shots, arrange for foster care and adoptions. Through rescue agreements with other shelters, the animals in their care now have forever homes throughout the country.

Their stories and updates appear on ASPCI’s Facebook page, usually accompanied by a photo and a big thank you to the organization for uniting the pet and the family.

They also take rescues to Pet Smart in Trussville as part of the adoption program. Facebook also is one of their tools for adoption, where they post photos, names and descriptions of adoptable pets.

They operate a Managed Admission Program locally, where they work with people who may not be able to keep a pet and assess if they can facilitate adoption. Or, someone may just need help with providing food, and ASPCI steps in to help.

They work with Lakeside Hospice in a program called Pet Peace of Mind, where hospice patients may not be able to take care of their pets any longer. ASPCI is there to ensure they find another loving home. And they own and operate a pet cemetery in Moody.

Organizations like ASPCI are only as strong as the people who are involved in it. Just as those who have come before to build a strong foundation and continue their support to this day, fosters are key to the group’s success. They keep adoptable animals two to four weeks in their homes to allow time to arrange for adoptions and rescue runs to other shelters en route to forever homes.

Tammy Hart serves as foster, rescue and adoption coordinator. A computer engineer by trade, she represents a new generation of ASPCI volunteers, getting involved just four years ago. “It is one of the most rewarding thigs I’ve done,” she said, noting that through fostering, she has helped save hundreds of animals.

People may be reluctant to foster, Hart said, because they say ‘they can’t give them up.’ She is quick to tell them, “When they go, you know they are going to a good home. If you don’t let them go, you can’t make room for others.”

They find comfort in those words and the compassion behind them. Fosters are a dedicated group that finds rewards in the work they do to unite pets with their forever homes, just like Embry and others who came long before them.

Embry shared a poem by Helen Inwood, whose words, she said, “spoke to my heart so deeply many, many years ago….and has been my mantra always.” It is the same mantra that ASPCI seems to bring to life in the work it does.

All involved would simply tell you it is a labor of love. To Pell City and St. Clair County, it has been an answered prayer.

 

PRAYER FOR THE HELPLESS

Let me be a voice for the speechless,
Those who are small and weak;
Let me speak for all helpless creatures
Who have no power to speak.
I have lifted my heart to heaven
On behalf of the least of these-
The frightened, the homeless, the hungry, I am now voicing their pleas.
If I can help any creature,
Respond to a desperate call,
I will know that my prayer has been answered By the God Who created them ALL.

 

To learn more about ASPCI or to donate, go to aspci.org or follow on Facebook. Mardi Paws Fur Ball is March 3 at Celebrations, the group’s major fundraiser for the year, and support is encouraged.

When Disaster Strikes

Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos by Wallace
Bromberg Jr.
Submitted photos by
Ben Chandler
and Ellen Tanner

“Jesus is the hope that calms life’s storms.”

The marquee message at Friendship Baptist Church in Odenville one March evening seemed quite appropriate because, inside the building, a large group of people was learning how to help others recover from natural disasters.

Nina Funderburg of Talladega, who sat beside Pell City friend, Sandy Gafnea, excitedly looked forward to being part of faith-based disaster relief. “If Jesus is in it, I want to do it.”

Early the next morning, Funderburg would have to demonstrate safety and skill with a chainsaw by felling a tree.

Mary Parsons of Moody was completing her disaster relief retraining to do what she finds fulfilling. “I just like helping people,” she said.

After finishing hours of training and passing a background check, the men and women in the group would receive the Homeland Security clearance necessary for entering a disaster area.

With those credentials in hand, it would be official: each had earned the privilege of wearing the yellow shirt and hat of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief.

Some of the attendees had traveled from as far away as Athens and Rainsville. After the weekend of training, they would return to their part of the state to attach to a unit in their locale. The individuals who attend a Southern Baptist church in St. Clair would become part of the St. Clair Baptist Disaster Relief team.

Members of that team are ambassadors who dispatch on short notice to a storm-damaged area, bringing with them chainsaws, comforting words … and prayer.

Sometimes, they are the first and only contact people in crisis ever have with St. Clair County, Alabama.

“We’re kind of one of the best-kept secrets in St. Clair County,” said Glenn Pender of Steele, coordinator of St. Clair Baptist Disaster Relief.

In the beginning
In 2003, efforts to organize the team began and, the next year, the first volunteers completed training. Pender said it was also in 2004 when they embarked on their first mission — a rebuilding project in Flomaton after Hurricane Ivan.

Currently, 115 men and women — from ages 25 to 85 and from 22 Southern Baptist churches in St. Clair County – make up the unit. Nearly 30 of the members are chaplains, said Pender and Ben Chandler, director of missions for St. Clair Baptist Association.

Depending on the field of service they have chosen, the members might operate chainsaws, a Bobcat skid steer, bucket truck or shower trailer; give assistance with mud-out, cleanup and recovery, or provide administrative services, explained Chandler and Pender.

Some on the St. Clair volunteers have trained to care for children or to work in mass feeding. Both of those services are provided through the state-level organization, Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief.

Mel Johnson, disaster relief and construction coordinator for Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions in Montgomery, said members of St. Clair Baptist Disaster Relief number among the state’s 7,000 Southern Baptist disaster relief volunteers.

These volunteers are included under the even larger umbrella of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“We are actually volunteer missionaries with the North American Mission Board,” Pender said.

In the United States, 65,000 Southern Baptists are trained disaster relief volunteers, said Beth Bootz, disaster relief communications coordinator for NAMB. That makes Southern Baptists “one of the three largest mobilizers of trained disaster relief volunteers in the United States.” The other top mobilizers are the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

Ellen Tanner, director of St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency, pointed out that St. Clair Baptist Disaster Relief has a crucial role in emergency response in the county. The team provides “vital” services, such as “debris removal on private property, which the county and cities cannot do.” Plus, the unit bears the responsibility of registering and directing volunteers and serving as coordinators in the Emergency Operation Center.

Tanner said the team members “are committed to serving God by serving others. Their actions and the love they show for people is often the act of unselfish kindness that can turn a person’s life around.”

During its 11 years, the disaster relief team has ministered in a long list of places, helping fellow Alabamians after floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. Just last year, the group spent three weeks working in Bessemer after a tornado.

In addition, the unit has assisted after natural disasters in Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois and New York, according to James Dendy, a team chaplain from Cropwell.

When leadership of Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief is asked to help after a crisis in another state, “St. Clair is usually one of the first to mobilize,” Johnson said.

Ron Warren of Steele, a member of St. Clair’s unit, said its volunteers worked a total of eight weeks in damaged areas after Hurricane Katrina, 11 days following Hurricane Rita and two weeks on Staten Island, N.Y., after Hurricane Sandy.

At times, they have been in areas of martial law with no electrical service for a 100-mile radius. A mob would gather at the arrival of a vehicle loaded with food and supplies. People were so hungry that the situation was dangerous, said Warren, who is also state chainsaw coordinator for Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief.

“It is a stressful ministry” on many different levels, Dendy said. Seeing the despair of the suffering people and magnitude of destruction “gets to you. It can overwhelm you, especially for the new guys. It’s one thing to see it on the news. It’s another thing to see it on the ground.”

Their hearts ache, and they weep for the people in crisis, Pender said. “It’s not an easy task.”

Because it is such an emotional ministry, Warren said chaplains are embedded in every team the St. Clair unit sends into a storm-damaged area.

The chaplains are present to attend to the volunteers, who hurt deeply for the people they are trying to help, Warren said. The chaplains minister, as well, to those affected by the storms – talking to them, addressing their needs, praying with them and, most importantly, telling them about Jesus.

Often, when the disaster relief team arrives and goes to work, property owners ask how much the services will cost. When the owners hear that it is free of charge, the answer almost always is met with surprise, Dendy said. The people find it difficult to believe that individuals will travel such a long distance to help strangers … for free.

As volunteers, the disaster relief members receive no pay. They cover the costs related to their training, as well as the expenses of traveling to an area of need. Often, they take time off work to assist in affected communities.

“If you ask why these volunteers travel such long distances, spend their own money to get to these locations and put themselves in harm’s way to help those suffering through the horrible circumstances brought on by disaster, they will respond, ‘God loves you; so do we. And that is why we are here to help,’” said Johnson.

“Our main goal is to carry the word of Christ – to let others see Christ in us,” said team member Jimmy Pollard of Riverside.

“The greatest pay is when we see someone come to know Jesus Christ (as Savior),” Pender said.

It is about “helping folks and being there when they need us,” said Ron Culberson of Springville, coordinator of St. Clair’s chainsaw-cleanup-recovery crew.

“This,” said team member Jim Thomas of Clay, “is what God wants me to do.”

Prepared and ready
Because of the financial support it receives from churches within St. Clair Baptist Association and from individuals, the disaster relief team has become one of the best equipped in the state.

Of the 54 cleanup-recovery-chainsaw units manned by Southern Baptists in Alabama, “St. Clair is one of the larger, well-organized teams,” said Johnson. “St. Clair has invested in equipment that allows them to serve in difficult areas with heavy equipment, such as a bucket truck, skid steer and shower unit.”

Warren said St. Clair was the first unit in the state to have a Bobcat skid steer and is the only one with a bucket truck.

As for the shower trailer, it is a “Cadillac” unit, Chandler said. It was the first of three built by the St. Clair team. The other two now belong to Southern Baptist disaster relief groups elsewhere in the state.

Designed by Pender and Warren, the trailer features six shower stalls, each with a locking door. One stall is handicap accessible. A laundry room boasts two pair of commercial washers and dryers.

Generally, the shower unit and laundry facilities are for volunteers to use. However, they also are made available to people in affected areas.

Like the team’s equipment, the capabilities and willingness of the members have garnered a positive reputation.

“The skills and abilities of the St. Clair unit are a testament to their ongoing training and commitment to respond for crisis mitigation,” Johnson said.

Even though the team’s focus is on ministering during a disaster, it stays busy throughout the year with community service projects.

The chainsaw crew frequently cuts trees that are deemed unsafe or are threatening nearby structures.

Also, during the summer months, the shower unit is in great demand as mission teams, such as World Changers and Mission Serve, come into the area to work.

Mission hits home
April 27, 2011 …

That 24-hour span was filled with sadness from beginning to end.

When early morning straight-line winds ripped through Moody, Pell City and Riverside, two lives were lost.

St. Clair Baptist Disaster Relief quickly went to work in the Moody area, cutting trees and moving debris.

Hour after hour, tornados cut paths all over the state. More than 60 of them crisscrossed Alabama, leaving hundreds dead.

Then, just before nightfall, an EF-4 tornado tore through the Shoal Creek community of St. Clair County.

Under normal circumstances, the disaster relief volunteers — who had just gotten home from working all day in Moody — would have been sent into Shoal Creek at first light the next morning.

This time, however, the situation was dire. It could not wait.

Damage was so widespread and debris so thick that team members were sent immediately.

Through the night and well into the next morning, they cut a path for first responders to get into the valley to free the trapped, treat the injured and locate the missing.

Around 3:30 a.m. April 28, the chainsaw crew finally reached the end of the storm’s track.

Eleven residents had perished in the tornado. Two more – including a preborn baby – died in the next few days, said Carl Brownfield, chief of Shoal Creek Volunteer Fire Department.

Broken were the hearts of the residents.

Broken, as well, were the hearts of the disaster relief team members. All the past crises in which they had worked could not have prepared them for one so tragic. This time, team members were helping their very own. These were St. Clair people who were hurting; they were “family.”

Pender grows emotional talking about that night and the days that followed.

He chokes back tears and says there are some images from that time he just cannot allow to come into his mind because they are too painful.

“We don’t like to relive that,” Pender said of himself and other disaster relief volunteers who witnessed the death, distress and devastation the tornado left in its wake. “It was difficult for all of us.”

Some team members worked nine days straight, breaking only to eat, shower and sleep.

The unit continued its cleanup-and-recovery efforts for another four weeks after that. While some of the team remained engaged in those endeavors, other members moved into the rebuilding phase.

That June, the volunteers worked another three weeks.

“We had people rebuilding in there up until a year or so ago,” Warren said.

Giving back
After the tornado, Brownfield exited what was left of his house and entered a “nightmare.” He and volunteer firefighter Mike Blanton looked for survivors and cut through trees while trying to reach the rescuers they knew were working to get into the valley.

Several times in the weeks after the tornado, members of St. Clair Baptist Disaster Relief visited Brownfield. They talked to him; they prayed with him.

Those simple acts “lifted me back up and got my faith going again,” Brownfield said.

Time and again during those weeks, he encountered different team members and found them all to be “wonderful” people.

“I had seen how much they were doing in our community,” Brownfield said.

Although he had heard of the team previously, he had not realized the size of it or the scope of its ministry.

Two years ago, he joined the unit, starting out on the chainsaw crew and then learning to operate the skid steer.

This past spring, Brownfield completed training to become a disaster relief chaplain. He wants to comfort others in crisis.

Within a year after the tornado, Shoal Creek resident David Smith joined the disaster relief team.

For Smith, a volunteer firefighter as well, being involved in St. Clair Baptist Disaster Relief is his way to give to others in return for all that his community received.