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VOLUNTEERS, DONATIONS KEEP NEIGHBORS GOING
Douglas County Republican
December 16th, 2003
Arcola -- When catastrophe strikes, neighbors are sometimes closer than family.
The Mennonite Relief Agency of East-Central Illinois, a charitable group that relies solely on donations and volunteers, has a mission to be there when disaster strikes and no one else can help.
"It's just neighbors helping neighbors," co-founder Delmar Otto said. "We help people in crisis."
Otto said the agency extends help to seven area counties: Douglas, Moultrie, Coles, Shelby, Edgar, Clark and Champaign.
"It's all volunteer," he said. "Whether you volunteer with one can of food or a truckload, with the shirt your aunt got you last Christmas that you didn't like, one dollar or one-hundred dollars--- anyone can be a good neighbor."
Otto said he has been involved in charitable organizations for several decades, but he saw a need for one that was completely volunteer. The Mennonite Relief Agency of East-Central Illinois has been in operation about 25 years.
"There are people who have things and people who need things -- we are just the go-between who helps with the transfer," he said.
Otto said the group is helping one-hundred-and-six area families who need anything and everything -- including the Cummings family, who lost everything they owned in a fire Sunday night. The group has provided first month's rent and deposit on a three-bedroom home, clothing, food, furniture, books, school supplies and new toys for the family's four children. It also plans on replacing the family's Christmas gifts, which were destroyed in the blaze.
Otto also said that few people realize how quickly a stable living situation can turn into a desperate one, citing the Cummings family as an example. "Both parents are working, but because they have no benefits and have a medical special-needs child, they have relatively little disposable income left after they pay their bills. As a result, their renter's insurance will not provide enough funds to replace everything the family lost, because they have virtually no cash savings."
"We have not only the ability to help each other through tough times, we have a duty as neighbors and fellow human beings to do so," he said. "In my years of involvement in this and other charitable causes, I have found the common perception among the general public that the poor are to blame for their own situation to be largely myth. Virtually every person or family who has come to us for help has already exhausted every other option available to them, including second and third jobs. They literally have nowhere else to turn."
Otto points out that although the group is associated with the Mennonite Church, it is not a religious organization. "We neither ask nor care what or even whether an applicant attends a church---that's not why we're here. We're here to help people in need, plain and simple. That happens to coincide with my beliefs, but I would do this anyway, even if I were an atheist, simply because it's the right thing to do."
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