From San Angelo to Wimberley With Love

Chandice Nevins was talking to her friend Lauren Brown one night about doing something to help the flood victims in Hayes County. Both women have friends that grew up in Wimberley, and felt compelled to reach out and help everyone in Wimberley and the county surrounding it. Together they decided taking donations in the form of supplies would be the best way to aid flood victims in rebuilding their homes and lives.

Lauren and her husband Cody Brown own Iggy’s Italian Ice and are sponsoring the volunteer effort as a drop off site for donations.

This week, Monday through Thursday, between 11 a.m. and 10 p.m., and Friday between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m., you can drop off your contribution to help aid the flood victims of Hayes County at both Iggy’s Italian Ice locations at 37A W. Concho Ave. and 3315 Sherwood Way. Both Iggy’s Italian Ice locations will be collecting donations through closing time (11 p.m.) on Friday, June 19.

Friday night after closing, Nevins will hook up a trailer to the back of her SUV and begin her journey to Hayes County where an abnormal amount of rainfall causing torrential flooding literally washed houses off of their foundations during the storms over Memorial Day weekend. 

“We are all about community and we are all for supporting fellow Texans,” said Brown. “If our community was down, others would step in to support us, so we are just doing that.”

The relief effort is based on the saying, “Texans helping Texans, neighbors helping neighbors”.

“The Browns have been kind enough to help us with this effort,” Nevins said. “Amy Painter from Do Good Texas [is] I have been in contact with and she has been great, too.”

Barnabas Connection, a nonprofit organization, is accepting all monetary donations.

“Whether you are donating here, San Antonio or Wimberley, that’s where we ask that you send it and then they just disperse it as needed,” said Nevins.

Nevins has been in contact with relief workers in the area and has made a list of what is most in need at this time. That list includes:

• hygiene products,
• Industrial cleaning products such as bleach,
• also work gloves,
• wheelbarrows,
• box fans,
• extension cords,
• garden hoses,
• buckets,
• halogen lights and
• saws.

Relief workers say that there is already an abundance of bottled water, but Gatorade would be most appreciated.

Nevins not only wants people to donate items like cleaning products and Gatorade, but thinks it would be nice to attach a note to whatever it is you are dropping off.

“In a sense, when I buy a shovel I want to send it up there with my love letter,” she said making quotation marks with her fingers in the air. “I feel like I’m giving that shovel to a friend and not a faceless stranger. Then when they are receiving that shovel, they’re realizing there is a person on the other end of that and that person is praying and caring for them, sending them well wishes, which can mean a lot. From Tom Green to Hayes, with love.”

Nevins also says that anyone who is interested in helping with the trip is invited with the understanding it will be on your own dime, as this is a volunteer effort.

“We won’t know our exact route until we get closer to Friday, and then after we get there that could change depending on where the need is greater,” she said. “We might end up going from town to town just staying in one spot, of course some of that will depend on our supply donation drive. I am hoping for enough to have to come back and make more trips.”

For more information on how you can help visit: www.facebook.com/tomgreentohayes

To make a monetary donation: www.barnabasconnects.org