Liberty holds supply drive for Hurricane Ian disaster relief

Liberty University students participated in a supply drive on Oct. 14 for families impacted by Hurricane Ian. The drive was organized by Liberty’s LU Serve Now initiative.

Throughout the day, a trailer was parked outside the Liberty Arena for students to drop off donations, which included bottled water, tarps, diapers of all sizes, baby wipes, and formula. The trailer was parked at Thomas Road Baptist Church over the weekend for church members and others in the community to donate. The trailer left for Fort Myers, Fla., on Monday, where local churches will assist in distribution.

“This was a great way for our students, faculty, and staff to get involved here at Liberty,” LU Serve Director Steven Gillum said. “The churches are going to be working with the community at large to make sure that these essential items are distributed to the people most highly affected in the community.”

He said the specific items collected will meet immediate needs.

“These are the most essential items that the communities are asking for because these are the things that they do not have access to right now. They do not have running water that is clean for them to actually drink and use. We don’t think about bottled water being an essential item until we don’t actually have clean, running water.”

Flames Soccer senior defenseman Filip Burnett said that seeing some of the destruction in Florida while traveling earlier this month to play at Jacksonville University motivated him to find a way to help the residents there. Soon after, he heard about the Serve Now donation drive.

“I just feel like it’s important to help others when we have so much here and we have the ability to do so,” he said.

Burnett said it is a privilege to be part of a university that prioritizes serving those in need.

“I feel like we’re just (living) out our mission of being Champions for Christ and just doing the most for the community and trying to help others when we can.”

Next month, Liberty plans to send two LU Serve Now disaster relief teams to Englewood, Fla. (Nov. 6-12 and Nov. 13-19) to help with cleanup in partnership with Samaritan’s Purse.