Community Corner

Volunteers Keep Shelter Running Smoothly

Bethel residents and Red Cross volunteers make sure families and pets are well cared for.

Since Sunday morning, the Bethel Municipal Building has served as a shelter for several town residents. While there is no place like home, those who have taken up temporary residence say that the town of Bethel has done a splendid job of keeping everyone clean, well fed, and warm.

While only 30 were staying at the Shelter as of Thursdy night, many more were coming in for food and showers.

 Tom McHaffie, Ohio, came into Bethel through the Red Cross. Serving up peanut butter and jelly, that just happened to have originated ten miles from his home in Canton, McHaffie said, “We've been steady with about 30 people here, but once it got cold, more people started coming in.”

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 “The local people were taking care of the shelter until we got here,” McCaffie said, “Then they went home. They had a lot going on there, too.”

 The people in Bethel were not the only ones to benefit from the town's services. The Community Emergency Response Team is also at the shelter, taking care of three cats and two dogs. The volunteers are having a fine time doing so. The cats are all around six months old and the volunteers find their kittenish antics irresistible. “They are so cute, I almost hope they are left here,” one volunteer laughed.

Find out what's happening in Bethelwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 Volunteers who handle animals must be trained by the State Animal Response Team. Robert Yost, trained by SART, believes that Bethel and Ridgefield are the only towns in the area that have pet shelters.

 Lorraine Akers and her dog have been in the shelter since Sunday. Akers is disabled and has a hard time getting around, and is grateful for the help she has been getting from the Red Cross and SART. Many of the people who have remained at the shelter are either elderly or disabled.

 “It's been a mix of elderly people and families,” Director Tom Galliford, Bethel Office of Emergency Management, said. “We didn't open the shelter for Irene, because the weather was warmer. People wanted to stay home, but now they have to deal with temperatures in the 20s. All three of our elderly housing were without power.”

 Laura Vasile, Director of Health, Town of Bethel, has also been putting in long hours at the shelter but she gives credit for much of the shelter's success to the local volunteers and the Red Cross.

 Bethel residents Frank and Maureen Olive said they have been working at the shelter about ten hours a day since the the storm hit, but other volunteers say the couple has put in more like fourteen hours a day.

 Laura Vasile spoke glowingly about all of the Red Cross volunteers, and said, “Tom McHaffie makes sure that everything is in tip top shape.”

 Myrtle McClure and Kay Coldwell, Red Cross workers who both came to Bethel from Pennsylvania, said their efforts have mostly been in assisting those who need help.

 “We've had people with diabetic problems, we are helping people who need care,” McClure said. “We had to transfer some of the elderly. We have a 93 year old here.”

 “One gentleman had oxygen problems,” Coldwell sighed. “The houses seem to get colder every day.”


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