The Mayor of Volunteer Village Traditional Cache

On May 4th, 2007 an enormous EF5 tornado hit Greensburg, Kansas destroying almost everything in its 1 3/4 mile wide path.

Since that fateful night, the city of Greensburg has made incredible progress towards the noble goal of building a truly "green" city using eco-friendly building techniques with a focus on sustainability.

Many organizations have jumped in to help with the planning and rebuilding efforts - federal agencies like FEMA and EPA, many state agencies, and numerous local entities. Television networks have been involved in everything from coverage of the disaster and rebuilding efforts to building parks on their own! Discovery Channel's Planet Green has an entire series based on the activities.

But one of the less represented components of this massive recovery effort is the volunteer. This lack of attention is probably due to the transient nature of such people. They show up and work for a week or weekend then return to their real world roles.

Three of us made a survey trip to Greensburg in April to determine what a larger group of students and adults could do to help over a week-long trip later in the summer. Several times during that visit the conversation touched on missing songbirds. Apparently the songbird population of Greensburg disappeared when the trees were destroyed during the tornado. We wanted to get our entire student ministry involved in this project before the trip took place in July, so we decided to build enough birdhouses to convince the missing birds to come home. Our group was in Greensburg for 5 work days in July of 2008. We distributed 210 birdhouses to the residents of the city and worked on the construction teams of a half dozen homes. We dug, insulated, shingled, wrapped, hammered, cut, plumbed, wired, repaired and cleaned; in short, these hard-working people did everything they could do to help the Greensburg machine get back on its feet. One crew member even met a distant cousin who lived in Greensburg, for the first time in her life.

While we were in town there were several other groups working under the SCKTRO (South Central Kansas Tornado Recovery Organization) umbrella. One group came from Carrollton, Texas, another from Minnesota and two individuals from Midland and Boston just showed up to help.

But the volunteer efforts don't just happen by themselves, it takes an enormous infrastructure to support all the individual tasks. Much of that infrastructure is delivered by outside aid organizations like the Mennonite Housing and Lutheran Disaster Response, but it can only succeed through the efforts of dedicated residents who want to see their town built back better than ever.

Matt Deighton is one Greensburg resident who has made a direct impact on that effort. Matt coordinates the volunteer efforts and makes sure the groups get hooked up with a project or another team. He once jokingly referred to himself as "The Mayor of Volunteer Village" and the name has been stuck in my mind ever since. It is now the name of a Greensburg geocache, planted with his permission of course.

Matt is no longer with us but this geocache remains in tribute to his work for the City of Greenburg.

Additional Greensburg resources:
Official Website of Greensburg, Kansas
Unofficial Greensburg Website

I can't imagine spending any time in this town and not being touched by it. Please take a little extra time to leave your thoughts and encouragement in your log entry.

If you came to town as a volunteer, please tell us about your experiences.