FBC Jasper member fills vital role in disaster relief administration

When Sandra Sanders, a member of First Baptist Church, Jasper, got the call from Georgia a little before lunchtime Oct. 9, the folks over there were already beyond exhausted from working long hours and multiple shifts.

So she got to packing.

"Within about three hours, we were on the road," Sanders said of herself and Sheila Eaton of Edgil Grove Baptist Church, Jasper.

For the last five years, Sanders has taken off whenever the call came for administrative help in the midst of chaos, an ice storm in Kentucky in February, Hurricane Ike in Texas last fall and hurricanes Ivan and Katrina in Alabama in previous years.

As director of administration personnel for Alabama Baptist disaster relief, Sanders works in the affected area, keeping team projects organized and logging their status on spreadsheets.

"When there is disaster, people are really needed there to be the record keepers and report makers," she explained. "It helps the leadership be able to keep their eyes on the big picture while we take care of the little details."

Usually Sanders works in Alabama or out of a church at a site set up specifically for Alabama Baptist volunteers, but this time was a little different.

This time, Georgia Baptists were the ones who needed a little leg up.

So Oct. 9�� she and Eaton set up shop in a trailer in Douglasville, Ga., that was serving as a Georgia Baptist Convention command center. There, the two processed Georgia volunteers' work, keeping up with the job requests, sorting them and sending them out to the teams.

According to Mel Johnson, disaster relief strategist for Alabama Baptists, Sanders "represents part of disaster relief that often goes unnoticed by many."

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