Hurricane Harvey recovery: Cedarville sending 30 students to Houston

Cedarville University will send 30 students to Houston to help in the Hurricane Harvey recovery.

The students and staff headed to the Lone Star State will leave campus on Saturday, Oct. 14, and will be in Houston at least a week, according to a statement university officials released Thursday.

According to forecasters, Hurricane Harvey made landfall Aug. 25 and dropped 40 to 61 inches of rain in southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana to set all-time U.S. tropical cyclone rain records. There were 77 confirmed fatalities.

The group expects to arrive in Houston approximately 20 hours after leaving campus.

Cedarville's Houston team will partner with Northeast Houston Baptist Church at Farrington Mission, a community center that serves one of Houston's largest underprivileged areas.

Students will repair damage caused by flooding and strengthen Farrington Mission's ongoing ministries. Those ministries include a large food pantry, clothing closet, men's basketball ministry and pregnancy resource clinic.

"We want to respond to these situations with the compassion of Christ," said Brian Nester, director of global outreach at Cedarville. "When Christ saw a need, he sought to meet the need. When people are in dire straits, we need to meet those needs as much as possible."

The university also is mulling sending two additional teams of students to Florida and the Dominican Republic next fall to help people in the Hurricane Irma recovery.

There's no word on when that decision might be made.

Cedarville University also has established a relief fund to help victims of the hurricanes. The fund will cover the cost for students to participate in the trip and finance other hurricane relief efforts.

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