“We are nothing if not partners”

Thanks to the power of partnerships and “the kids in the orange shirts,” thousands of disaster relief kits have been distributed to households in underserved Louisiana communities to help them through the aftermath of hurricanes and other disasters.

The 3,000 kits were assembled during the 2024 ELCA Youth Gathering, held July 16-20 in New Orleans. Their distribution was completed in mid-September.

A central aspect of each Youth Gathering is accompaniment: collaborating with local groups in hosting cities to lift up their communities in various ways. This year’s relief kit project was a joint effort with the Louisiana Just Recovery Network (LJRN), which was formed following Hurricane Ida in 2021 and was one of 300 partner organizations for the 2024 Gathering.

LJRN’s mission is to support descendant communities in repairing, recovering and thriving in the face of climate disaster and environmental injustice.

3,000 relief kits were assembled during the 2024 ELCA Youth Gathering. Their distribution was completed in mid-September.

New Orleans, like a lot of places that regularly experience damaging events, is accustomed to people “overpromising and underdelivering,” said Kristen Contos Krueger, director of accompaniment for the 2024 Gathering. “But they associate our kids—they call them ‘the kids in the orange shirts’ because on service days they all wear bright orange shirts—as people who show up and do what they said they’d do, joyfully.”

In the months leading up to this year’s Gathering, each of the ELCA’s nine regions was tasked with obtaining large numbers of one of the nine items that the kits would contain: battery-powered personal fans, charging banks, Liquid I.V. electrolyte drink mixes, cooling towels, AA batteries, first-aid kits, personal wipes and battery-powered lanterns.

“We invest time into listening to community organizations, asking them, ‘If you were to have people who could help, and a small amount of resources, how can we help further what you’re trying to do?’” Contos Krueger said. “Two years ago, we gathered leaders from across New Orleans from different nonprofits and city groups, and overwhelmingly what they told us they needed were disaster relief supplies. And with help from organizers in the city, we developed the list for the kits.”

The items were then assembled into kits by the 16,000 Gathering participants at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.

Mutual dependence

Some of the items traveled to New Orleans with Gathering participants; others were shipped. Toi Carter, LJRN co-founder, then coordinated the distribution of the assembled kits to 27 of its partner organizations.

“Toi has a brilliant mind in many ways and particular expertise in logistics and coordination,” said Gregory Manning, pastor of LJRN partner Broadmoor Community Church in New Orleans.

Carter in turn praised Christ the King Lutheran Church in nearby Kenner, La., which received, organized, loaded and delivered to the convention center the thousands of packages containing kit items that donors had ordered.

“Special recognition to Christ the King employee Kris Diaz for her role in this work,” Carter said. “We are nothing if not partners. We are so interdependent on one another to care for one another, with this climate-uncertain future, in preparing for disasters and post disaster.”

“It was important to us that the students who assembled the kits had awareness of who would be receiving them and know more about our network.”

Maryn Olson, director of Lutheran Disaster Response, was on hand at the Youth Gathering to help educate kit builders about the value of disaster preparedness. Young people from the communities that would receive the kits took part in panel discussions, moderated by Manning, in which they spoke about “what their communities deal with when storms come, what it means to evacuate, to live life within the limits of Louisiana and deal with the impact of climate change,” he said.

“It was important to us that the students who assembled the kits had awareness of who would be receiving them and know more about our network,” Carter added.

When the kits were complete, they and the students who had worked on them were led by local youth marching bands, in the spirit of a New Orleans tradition known as second lining, in a parade through the convention center. The kits were then blessed and sent on their way.

“We were lucky to get to work with the Louisiana Just Recovery Network and Toi,” Contos Krueger said. “She had the right connections and shared values, understanding our desire that the kits make their way into parts of the city that are underserved. We hadn’t set a numerical goal, but 3,000 is phenomenal, more than our partners were expecting. It was a fun gift to give them.”

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