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All Aboard! Volunteers keep Orphan Grain Train on the right track
By Tara Grunig-Perre
It’s not really a train, but it does deliver grain-sometimes.
And it does help orphans, but not exclusively.
The Orphan Grain Train started as a relief effort for starving Russian orphans, but it has grown past the origins of its name, for a good reason.
“There are so many people out there in need,” says Francis Sedlacek, an AAL* member and Orphan Grain Train volunteer in Loveland, Colorado. “The Orphan Grain Train reaches out to any place that asks and allows us to bring help and the Word of Jesus Christ.”
The Orphan Grain Train started in 1992 after AAL member the Rev. Ray Wilke and his wife, Lois, of Norfolk, Nebraska, visited Russia and found widespread hunger and despair after the fall of Communism. Since that time, it has expanded to help people all around the world, including the United States, fulfilling its mission to spread the Word of God by taking care of the whole person, beginning with the physical needs of food, clothing and medicine.
And the Orphan Grain Train does just that, whether helping farmers in the Midwest and East Coast recover from poor growing conditions, providing housing for Hurricane Mitch victims in Central America or helping orphans in Russia.
The train begins with the humble and able people who volunteer. They hold fund-raisers and clothing drives and ask for donations from businesses and hospitals alike, all with one purpose: to fill as many 40-foot semi-truck trailers as possible with supplies for the needy of the world.
“It’s very fulfilling after a hectic day in the office, to go out and do this,” says Nancy Helmke, an AAL member and volunteer for the Orphan Grain Train in Napoleon, Ohio. “You just know that you are planting a seed that someday might sprout and grow. You don’t know who you are helping, you just know you are helping someone.”
Since its beginning, volunteers have helped send more than 312 trailers of supplies worth more than $20 million.
Volunteers work in communities throughout the United States and coordinate through 13 regional divisions and the national office and warehouse in Norfolk. Helmke and Sedlacek help coordinate two of the regional efforts.
While Sedlacek is working with Colorado churches and businesses to hold fund-raisers, Helmke is calling companies in Ohio for in-kind donations like soup and dried, condensed milk. From these regional hubs, the donations, whether money, food or clothing, then are shipped to Norfolk or the area in need.
“We work with anyone who wants to get involved,” says Sedlacek. “It’s pretty exciting.”
Once the donations are in Norfolk or one of the regional divisions, other volunteers work to sort, clean, fold and pack clothes and other supplies in trailers for shipping. The containers then are trucked or railed to various locations for domestic delivery or to be loaded onto ships for overseas destinations. When the supplies reach their destination, Orphan Grain Train volunteers or other partner organizations-like Lutheran Hour Ministries-distribute the materials to the needy.
“On a practical level, the Orphan Grain Train volunteers in North America work to generate clothing, food and medical supplies to be sent to areas around the world where we are working,” says AAL member Walt Winters, Lutheran Hour Ministries director of international missions. “We help with getting it through customs and with distribution.”
Sedlacek says Orphan Grain Train volunteers appreciate any help they get and value the involvement AAL members and AAL have given to their efforts. In 1998 and the first nine months of 1999 alone, 40 AAL branches raised more than $28,000 and applied for another $21,000 in matching funds through AAL’s Helping Hands program.
“We try to choose projects everyone has an interest in,” says Marion Wolpert, AAL Branch 3213 coordinator in Albuquerque, New Mexico, whose branch raised $2,000 for the Orphan Grain Train. “We know they are doing great work around the world and helping many children.”
In addition, the Orphan Grain Train is working to get three emergency response vehicles, funded by a $40,000 AAL Innovations Grant, on the road. The vehicles, stationed in Nebraska, Wisconsin and North Dakota, will help feed volunteers warm meals and provide other front-line assistance when natural disasters strike.
“It’s all about taking the same approach Jesus did,” says Sedlacek. “Feed them, heal them and ease their burden before preaching to them. Wherever we go, we bring the Word of God.”
*AAL has merged with Lutheran Brotherhood to form “Thrivent for Lutherans” since this article was written.
Tara Grunig-Perre works at Thrivent for Lutherans’ home office. She is a member of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. She can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Reprinted by permission of the author.