City, County, University Team Up to Serve Thousands After Ice Storm

Chapman, director of the Oxford Community Market; Laura Martin, associate director of the Grisham-McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement and director of M Partner at the University of Mississippi; and Abbie Austin, case manager at UMatter, gathered more than 100 people who wanted to serve their community. They called themselves the Second Responders.

"We sent out a call inviting individuals and organizations to attend a community meeting, hoping for a few dozen people to show up despite the ongoing crisis," Martin said. "Once we had 80 people in the room and another 60 on Zoom, we realized that Second Responders effort had the potential to be much larger than any one organization by harnessing the power of our collective strengths and networks."

Only days after the storm passed, groups of volunteers began coordinating donations, handing out survival supplies and clearing debris from roadways and homes. Those volunteers included LovePacks, More than A Meal, Commodores Care, the North Central Mississippi Realtor Board, Ole Miss students, faculty and staff and members of several local and regional churches.

"It's been more people than you can even name," said Fish Robinson, lead pastor of Community Church Oxford. "There are so many people here who wanted to serve.

"People look at Oxford and Lafayette County and say this is a rich community, and right now it is – it's rich in love and grace and mercy."

Since Jan. 29, the Second Responders have set up 19 relief stations across Lafayette County, from Taylor and Tula to Paris, Denmark and Abbeville. Volunteers have distributed supplies at another six sites, with an additional location underway.

"Because it's decentralized, people in pain don't have to drive to get the supplies they need," Chapman said. "We now have a whole network of coordinators at sites who know their community and know how to meet that community's needs."

Local food security charities such as More than a Meal and LovePacks pulled from their stores to make the first donations and, when supplies began to run low, the community stepped up.

"It was like every time we got close to running out of something, someone would call and say they had more and could get it to us," said Kristy Bridgers, founder of More than a Meal. "And it's grown outside of the county. We've had people from Houston (Texas) sending donations to us."

More than 185 Second Responders have distributed: 

• More than 15,000 hot meals  
• 5,000 food and hygiene packs  
• 144 household cleaning supply kits 
• 62 generators 
• 41 heaters 
• 4,000 gallons of propane.

"It's been overwhelming," said Cami Bianco, who founded the Lovepacks organization. "But overwhelming in a good way."

As efforts to restore power and water to Lafayette County continue, however, the work isn't done, Chapman said.

"We haven't even entered recovery mode yet; we're still in relief mode," she said. "We won't be in recovery mode until we know that everyone has food to eat and basic resources."

Although the situation has been dire, good is coming out of a difficult time, Chapman said.

"Seeing the community come together, it's felt like this effort is breaking down that separation between city and county and university," she said. "There's this imaginary boundary between us, and this is showing that we are all in this together, and we have to work together to get through it."

Top: Volunteers help distribute boxes of chicken rotini to delivery trucks bound for relief stations across Lafayette County. The food drive was organized by Second Responders, a group organized by representatives from the Oxford Community Market and the university. Photo by Clara Turnage/University Marketing and Communications