LEANDER, Texas — Every weekday at 10 a.m., a small group of volunteers meets over Zoom to discuss how they will help flood victims living in the Leander and Sandy Creek community.
John Parigi, a Rockwall resident, leads the discussion and always begins with a prayer.
“Thank you, dear Father, for giving us the will, the desire and the hope to plan and to put together resources for those who are in need,” he said with his head bowed and eyes closed. The five other volunteers on Zoom do the same.
The ragtag team has been sticking to this routine for the last four months since floods struck on July 4, focusing on the parts of Central Texas that, they say, were not getting enough coverage or attention.
“You had a lot of people showing up there [in Kerrville] with the government, like the Texas Department of Emergency Management,” Parigi said. “We had a lady working with us, her name is Melissa, and she was driving around and interviewing victims in the areas that were not incorporated and talking to them about what their needs were.”
Parigi was referring to Melissa Fryzel—one of the volunteers Spectrum News has talked with before in the immediate weeks following the floods.
Also in the group are Irene Reichenbach, Kaleena Schumaker and a representative from the Austin Disaster Relief Network, all of whom have advocated and worked toward flood mitigation in the small but tight-knit community. The group is scattered across Texas, Reichenbach even logging in from her home in Tennessee.
Topics vary every day. Some days, it’s a status update on families who are receiving donations or help with rebuilding, sometimes paired with a challenge to overcome.
“Seeing what we need for her home so we can figure out how to get it done. I have people to do the labor,” Schumaker said. “If [only] I had the supplies.”
Other times, it’s announcing a new wave of funding.
“It’s $700; it’s six checks collected back in July,” Parigi said. “And I asked her to hold the money if possible unless they have an emergency that comes up and needs immediate attention.”
The group has been doing this on their own time, but while they coordinate different efforts for different people, they have been working to formally organize themselves as a 508(c)(1)(a) under the name “Christ’s ARMs.”
“The ‘ARM’ stands for Angel Relief Ministries,” Parigi said. “We’re trying to establish something that can have arms to reach out, to be further than that [for] any disaster here in Texas and then expand to other parts of the country.”
The first step was technically accomplished months ago, getting a group together. The first formal step, though, is creating a mission statement.
“That will establish everything we do and how we do it,” Parigi said.
Until the group formally establishes the tax-exempt organization, they’ll continue to meet over Zoom.