Samaritan's Purse rallying support for wildfire victims in Oklahoma

In the wake of recent wildfires in Oklahoma, Samaritan’s Purse has mobilized teams to assist affected communities. The nondenominational Christian relief organization is known for its disaster response efforts nationwide. In Oklahoma, it is providing cleanup assistance, home repairs, and spiritual support to those who lost everything.

In a brief Q&A, Gabrielle Bouquet, a representative from Samaritan’s Purse, shares how the organization is stepping in to help Oklahomans recover and how people can get involved.

Q: What is Samaritan’s Purse and what do they do?

A: Samaritan’s Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, Samaritan’s Purse has helped meet the needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God’s love.

Q: How long have you been around and how did it start?

A: Samaritan’s Purse has been around for over 50 years. Currently, our president and CEO are Franklin Graham and Billy Graham. Billy Graham was a famous pastor who passed away about ten years ago. He just preached all over the world in a variety of countries and in the US.

His son Franklin has been instrumental in growing the ministry over the past 40 to 50 years. But the ministry was actually started by Bob Pierce. He was really passionate about medical missions and helping people when they are hurting. 

Q: How is Samaritan’s Purse helping currently?

A: Currently, we’re responding to two locations for the wildfires in California, the Palisades fire and Eden fire. We're continuing to rebuild in western North Carolina, which is where our international headquarters is located. We're rebuilding homes now, and we do that everywhere we go. Rebuilding, repairing, bringing in mobile homes, campers, vehicles, things like that.

We’re also responding to flooding in California, tornadoes in Missouri, and then wildfire in Oklahoma. So it's busy right now, but God has given us a lot of resources, a lot of people, a lot of vehicles, a lot of things to do what we do.

Q: How is the organization funded?

A: Everything we do is funded by individual donors who have given and support the mission of our organization, which is incredible, with the reach that we have. 

Because of their generosity, our domestic disaster relief, our international relief, a lot of the medical work that we do around the world, all of that has grown in the past few decades to be a massive operation, which we are so thankful for.

Q: Who does all of the work?

A: We rely on volunteers. Last year alone, we had over 50,000 volunteers. A lot of that was with Hurricane Hogan, which was record-breaking for us.

Volunteers get trained first. Whether it's a tornado response and we're training them on how to use chainsaws safely and removing debris safely and that kind of thing or to wildfire response. 

Q: What do the volunteers do?

A: We get people fully dressed up, fully covered and safe, and then they're just trying to find any kind of personal belongings or anything that's salvageable from the fire because they're really hard and heavy losses for homeowners to go through. When you get to walk away with one item or something that they remember, it's really healing for them and just gives them an opportunity to have closure. And that's really all we're after. There's not a whole lot else you can do in those moments.

Q: What is the goal of Samaritan’s Purse?

A: We honor God's gift to us with these resources by serving well and doing it the best way possible. 

The goal is that we come in, we boost their presence in the community and help as much as we can with the resources. But one day we will pack up and leave when all the needs are met that we can meet. And when that happens, we want the churches and the community to be stronger and to be better off because we were there.

Q: How can people get help? Or become a volunteer?

A: Our U.S. disaster relief teams are based out of our offices in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina and Texas and Fullerton, California, with a couple different offices throughout the U.S. They all receive phone calls and messages from both people who need help and those looking to volunteer as well.

The phone number to contact for homeowners in need of assistance is: (833) 747-1234

SP can assist with: 

1. Recovery of personal items
2. Chainsaw work
3. Temporary Roof Tarping

And if you want to volunteer you:

1. Call (405) 880-1591
2. Or Visit the website: SPvolunteer.org