Volunteer Minister Report - Saturday, March 25th

Scientology Volunteer Ministers from Brisbane and Sydney are on the ground in the cyclone-affected areas in Far North Queensland, assisting with the cleanup effort. Here is a recent report from the Volunteer Ministers there:

Many residents in the affected areas lost the roofs off their houses. Scientology Volunteer Ministers have been helping area residents with this, getting tarps up to keep out the rain.

Today the Disaster Coordinator at the local Council rang the VMs and said we need your help -- a big food shipment was coming in and they had no transport. Coles supermarkets dropped off a lot of stuff and they had to get it to the Army. They had to take everything out of the Volunteer Ministers' truck (which they did in record time!) and then one of our Volunteer Ministers went off to do the delivery for them and the army unloaded the truck with solders chaining the supplies off. There is another big shipment coming in Wednesday and we will help them again.

The supplies that the Army dropped off last night were divided up and given out to the locals this morning by the the Lead Volunteer Minister -- Gina Commacchio, Michael Callope and another VM.

They started giving assists* in the org VM tent in the middle of the city and one person who hadn't been eating and wasn't doing well mentally and physically since the cyclone was given a touch assist and some food and was very happy afterwards.

The State Emergency Services workers cut down trees in the big park that were dangerous and we needed the space cleared for our big VM tent, so closed them to move to clean up our area. They were all working very hard and got assists in exchange for them chain-sawing the trees and really felt relaxed after all of their hard work.

Our Volunteer Minister Team went to the location where all the refugees are going. We are in such heavy demand as people who are there to help totally as able volunteers.

We were at the TAFE (an adult college -- Technical and Further Education), this has been set up as a refugee accommodation centre, where people who had their homes destroyed are living right now. They have bunk beds set up in the college rooms. They also have a quarantine space set up and storage for food.

Our VMs once they told the officials from the Dept of Housing and Dept of Communities who and what we can do, they said "We desperately need you. We have no counselors here and we have all these crying people -- get two people right away and come and help us."

There are some areas that were badly hit that are not being helped and they want help on that and our Volunteer Ministers are coordinating food and bedding delivery - Merrilone, South Johnston, Silkwood, Curramine, Mission Beach. Our VMs are finding trailers, people with trucks and utes -- people who want to help and we can help distribute -- tonight and each day.

At this meeting, they also asked if we can put up some homeless people in our hall as they are running out of space as they evict people from their unsafe homes (the police gave us the keys for the hall and said we are in charge of it). Police are taking people out of their homes that are unstable and have to find places for them to go and asked us to help. They want the VMs to billet them in the hall. So we will do this and can hat them up and put them to work. We have a lot of food in our hall now also so it won't get stolen and the police want us to distribute it fairly.

The VMs are now unloading a big supply truck at the refugee centre -- dog food, juice, kids toys -- even golf clubs. They are doing a big chain line -- it would have taken hours and with our guys they did it fast.

Tomorrow they are taking the smaller org VM tent and moving it to the college building where the refugees are staying to do assists from and will set that up and they will also be able to recruit more volunteers -- people who have nothing to do -- to help with the work, delivery lines and also train them on assists. We can recruit locals and have to in order to handle the lines and what people need and want us to do.

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* Assists: L. Ron Hubbard discovered that there are spiritual factors that can affect a person's response to physical pain, shock and emotional trauma. He developed procedures called "Scientology assists." Assists bring the spiritual element into healing.
Every Volunteer Minister learns to use these procedures, which work on the principle that one tends to withdraw spiritually from an injured area of the body. By restoring communication with this area, one can bring the spiritual element into healing, thereby greatly speeding the healing process.