Pendleton residents come together to repair devastated town
PENDLETON, Ind. (WISH) – Pendleton was devastated by storms Monday night. Thankfully there was only one person injured.
Thanks to a little neighborly care, the heavy burden of cleaning up the town was lightened.
The mess is slowly but surely being managed, not by professional organizations, but neighbors who saw their chance to help as soon as dawn broke on the disaster left by the tornado.
“Welcome to Pendleton,” John Zelme said. “It’s different here.”
“Small town Pendleton, yep!” Adrienne Zelme said.
“It’s an opportunity to love your neighbor, right?” John Zelme said. “So, we don’t question why the storm happens, right? We’re people of faith here, but if it’s an opportunity to love a neighbor, that’s what we’re out here to do.”
The community wasn’t just picking up branches. They were doing anything to help. Food, supplies, manual labor, whatever they needed to do.
“26 years in the military, you fit in somewhere,” Lorie Fox said. “And this town has seen that today. We all fit in somewhere.”
But none of the cleanup could be done without the tools to do it
One man came from Tipton with a truck full of chainsaws to make the job easier.
“I think Randy had one saw,” Dan Roe said. “So I brought 10 saws. And then all these guys, they, as soon as I pulled in, they just grabbed a saw and took off.”
Even with Tuesday’s efforts, there are still a few days of work left, but at the end of the day, the people of Pendleton know their neighbors are watching out for them and are always willing to lend a hand. Or a chainsaw.
“I think that most times we forget that life’s about people,” Brandon Godbey said. “And when people need things, it doesn’t just have to be about something catastrophic like this. Get out, get to know people. Help people out. And we’ll recover from this.”
And if you’d like to help out Pendleton, you can make a donation or call 2-1-1 Wednesday to find out how you can help out physically.