By Allison Flexner, Development Communications Manager

When Jackie Shoemaker attended a ministerial meeting at Lanier County Family Connection in Lakeland, Georgia, she wasn’t looking for a new American Red Cross project.

She was there to listen and learn.

 The conversation turned when Amy Griffin, Executive Director of Lanier County Family Connection, shared that she had not felt safe walking on a resident's porch and accessibility ramp because of their poor condition. Griffin knew First Baptist Lakeland had a ministry that builds ramps and performs home repairs for residents who lack the resources to complete the work themselves. At the meeting, Pastor Michael Decker showed Shoemaker before-and-after photos of the church’s work.

Shoemaker, Executive Director of the American Red Cross South Central Georgia Chapter, started asking questions.

How did volunteers move their tools and lumber? Decker explained, “it was guys with their own pickup trucks, gathering equipment from different places.”

Would a trailer help?

“And his eyes lit up,” Shoemaker recalled.

That conversation eventually led the Red Cross to donate a trailer and generator to First Baptist Lakeland. It became one example of something larger taking shape in Lanier County: organizations learning what their neighbors do best, identifying what gets in the way and finding ways to fill the gaps.

It is shaped in part by lessons learned from Hurricane Helene and rooted in a Red Cross community mobilization project.

What Hurricane Helene Revealed

When Helene struck South Georgia in September 2024, the willingness of people to help was not in question.

At TruthPoint Ministries, where feeding families experiencing food insecurity was already a major ministry, the hurricane transformed an existing community resource into a disaster relief operation.

Power, water and telecommunications were down. Trucks began showing up with food and supplies. Volunteers worked by generator and portable lights, cooking what they could.

On the first day, the church prepared about 200 hot meals. By the end of the second week, that number had grown to about 750 plates a day.

“I don’t know how we did it,” recalled TruthPoint Media Pastor Scott Sirmans.

The experience showed what a community could accomplish when people mobilized quickly. It also revealed the obstacles that can limit even a strong response.

“We had no planning and no strategy because we had no way to,” Sirmans said of the communications outage and unexpected donations. “They couldn’t call us, so they would just show up with a truck full of stuff.”

The church knew how to distribute food, yet it lacked sufficient cold storage.

Empowering Local Partners

In the months following Helene, the Red Cross began working alongside Lanier County organizations through community mobilization efforts designed to strengthen local preparedness and resilience.

“We started here with really not knowing a lot about the community,” Shoemaker said.

Lanier County Family Connection helped connect the Red Cross with churches, schools, nonprofits and other organizations. The Red Cross facilitated a community analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT).

“We were listeners in the audience. It’s truly the community offering all the feedback,” Shoemaker said. “That’s exactly what you’d like to see for community mobilization, the community members taking ownership.”

The process also helped organizations look more intentionally at who was best equipped to meet particular needs.

“What I love…is they     [the two churches] have met the gaps instead of duplicating the services,” Griffin said.

TruthPoint brought strength in feeding families, partnering with Second Harvest of South Georgia, for resources. First Baptist Lakeland opened a clothes closet that has served at least 400 families since November 2025. The church also provides space and support for a Family Connection kinship program that serves relatives and others raising children who are not their biological children.

Other organizations contributed different resources and expertise.

“Nobody can do a great job alone,” said Susie Abbott, Baby Bulldog Director, Lanier County Family Connection. “But all of us together can come together and do what we do well, and we can bring that all to the table.”

Building on What Already Works

At First Baptist Lakeland, the new trailer will become a mobile workshop, stocked with tools for building accessibility ramps and doing home repairs.

And it can serve another purpose after a disaster: carrying chainsaws to remove downed trees, safety equipment, food, diapers or other supplies into surrounding communities.

“The biggest thing is working together. It’s not just that our little church can only do so much,” Decker said “But when we do it with other people, we are that much more effective.”

A similar conversation helped expand TruthPoint’s feeding ministry.

One delivery illustrated its cold storage problem. The church had ordered enough cheese to give each family one or two packages. Instead, roughly 120 boxes arrived.

Volunteers packed every available refrigerator and still had dozens of boxes left. They called partners, distributing cheese to Family Connection, another community feeding program and a rehabilitation ministry.

“We were trucking cheese everywhere,” Sirmans said.

Since the Red Cross donated industrial refrigeration and freezer equipment to TruthPoint, the church has been able to accept more food, including milk, eggs and other perishable items.

The church is now considering an even larger dedicated pantry space with walk-in coolers and more frequent distributions.

The Power of Showing Up

The equipment matters. But some of the most important changes underway in Lanier County are relationships.

Organizations increasingly know who to call to connect a family with help.

“While we may not all be holding hands doing the same job, we all have the same goals,” Abbott said.

For Shoemaker, it has reinforced another lesson: sometimes progress begins by showing up.

A conversation about one unsafe porch pointed to a church’s need for a trailer. Another conversation uncovered a food ministry’s storage problem.

“Every time that I’m here, it branches out to more and more opportunities,” Shoemaker said. “The Red Cross, we realize we can’t do it all. The more people working together, the more that we can get done collectively.”

Community organizations are filling different gaps rather than duplicating one another’s work while building trust and support through newly formed relationships.

It began with people showing up and asking questions.

Sometimes even one as basic as: What do you need?