As he thought about power outages and storm damage from Tuesday’s storms, Jim Prichard couldn’t help but get emotional.
“We’re all in this together,” said Prichard, auxiliary captain for the Salvation Army’s Porter County and Gary offices. “I mean, for myself, my house is damaged. These people’s houses are damaged, and there’s stuff in their yards. But here we are coming together to meet the needs of the community.”
The Salvation Army and Portage Township Schools partnered to distribute food and drinks at Portage High School Thursday. The groups also gave out meals from Wednesday night, and they partnered with the United Way of Northwest Indiana to have charging stations where people can charge their electronic devices.
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The United Way was at Portage High School Thursday morning and planned to be in Griffith next to offer the same services.
“There’s some medical equipment that needs to be charged,” Prichard said. “We had people yesterday charging their medical equipment.”
Portage resident Tom Worldy took advantage of the distribution site for its charging station, he said Thursday. He was charging a power station for his house, he added.
“This little power station has helped give us the basics, like lights,” Worldy said.
Worldy didn’t take food Thursday because he said he didn’t need it. He charged his power station for about an hour and a half before it was ready.
Worldy also said he was happy to see organizations help community members.
“I knew this would happen,” he added. “I knew the community would take care of each other because that’s what we do.”
About 900 people were at Wednesday’s drive, said Melissa Deavers, director of communications and community engagement for Portage schools. The groups expected similar numbers Thursday.
Portage High School had power Thursday, Deavers said, and the district offered it as a distribution location because they had experience with it before. The high school was the site for the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana’s mobile markets during the COVID-19 pandemic, she said.
The schools and Salvation Army brought food pulled from its coolers that was still safe to eat. Deavers said once coolers reach a certain temperature, the food is no longer good.
“The Salvation Army brought the food they had, and we just started coming together and pulling food from all of our schools,” Deavers said. “We just loaded up and made meal packs for kids, adults, for anybody who needs it.”
Deavers also said the school district is doing mobile food distributions throughout Portage.
Alex Hawkins, a Portage resident, attended the food drive Thursday morning with his children. He lives in Lake Pointe Apartments and said he’s been without power since late Tuesday morning.
“We have a lot of food we had to throw out,” Hawkins said. “But we’ve got to eat. … I’m getting stuff from the store that we can eat real quick, but it doesn’t have nutrition.”
Hawkins appreciated the food distribution at the high school, he said. His wife found the information online, he said, after looking for any resources in the area.
Another Portage resident, 16-year-old Janiyah Chandler, went to the distribution center for a meal and to charge her phone. Chandler went with her mom, she said.
“It’s going to be a while” before they get power, Chandler said. “Everybody else doesn’t have power, and it’s really hot right now. We have to open the windows.”
Chandler was supposed to return to school Wednesday, she said, but it was canceled due to storms. She believes they’ll go back to school Monday, especially because the high school has power.
Chandler and her family appreciate the help that organizations are giving community members during the power outages and storm cleanup, she said.
“It’s really good,” Chandler said. “Especially since it’s here where they have power, and there’s food inside that’s not going to go bad because they’re going to give it away.”
The Food Bank of Northwest Indiana was ready to help with distributions after Tuesday’s storms, President and CEO Victor Garcia said in a Thursday phone interview. The food bank was closed Wednesday because of flooding in the facility, he said, and road conditions weren’t safe for volunteers.
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The organization is struggling to find fuel sources to transfer food to and from its Merrillville facility, Garcia said. Mobile distribution sites have also shifted, Garcia said, because locations are no longer safe, but they’ve identified new areas to distribute resources.
“The food bank is still operating,” he added. “We’re still doing everything. Actually, we’re doing more than we normally do.”
The food bank didn’t lose any food, Garcia said. They safely store perishable food and have backup generators in their cold storage. However, the facility did have some damage, he said, specifically flooding in some of its office spaces.
As residents are still without power or food access, Garcia encourages them to check the Food Bank of Northwest Indiana’s social media for mobile distribution sites or text “market” to 219-500-6464.