Article from The Middletown Record and written by reporter Amanda Spadaro
LIBERTY — Local groups will be heading to Texas on Friday to assist the regions affected by Hurricane Harvey, according to a press release from the Liberty Rotary Club and Monticello-based nonprofit Operation Endeavor.
The groups are working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to plan a response for areas that aren’t receiving as much assistance as the urban areas. Aid efforts are also being coordinated through Rotary Clubs in the Houston area, the release said.
The five-member team includes Stuart Hirsch, director of operations for St. Mary’s Hospital Emergency Services in Connecticut. The other members on the team are Naval Corpsman Lawrence Smira and paramedical and rescue professional Charles Atwell, Charles Lee Miller and Thomas Andryshak.
Hirsch, a Liberty Rotarian, is also the president of Operation Endeavor. Gary Silver, Susan Kraycer and Gary Siegel are other Liberty Rotarians on Operation Endeavor’s board of directors.
Previously, the group won a Rotary International Global Grant for $105,000 to provide 1,000 water filtration systems in Northern Haiti, according to the release.
But the group also responds domestically.
“We have to be ready to respond to disasters in our own country,” Hirsch said. “While we seek to improve survivability and support rescue development globally, we must always be faithful to the emergent needs of our own people here in the United States.”
Hirsch, a professional pilot, previously led airborne relief missions to National Guard centers after Hurricane Sandy and directed an air response to Hurricane Matthew victims in Haiti in 2016.
The Liberty Rotary Club has contacted thousands of Rotarians in the New York region to donate to the effort.
Operation Endeavor is a nonprofit that provides rescue, emergency medicine and trauma training and supports disaster preparedness in developing regions of the world.
To donate to Operation Endeavor’s rescue and relief efforts in Texas, visit youcaring.com/OperationEndeavorHelpsTexasRescue.
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