VALLEY CITY, N.D. — Teenagers as young as 13 lifted and emptied sandbags Wednesday, at the home of a family they’ve never met. “Remember: Bend with your knees. Don’t use your back,” said Barbara Moore, volunteer coordinator for the Church of Resurrection High School Youth Group out of Ellicott City, Md. Ellicott City is part of the greater-Baltimore area. Fifty-one teenagers and 12 adults from Ellicott City, as well as about 40 volunteers from Dexter, Mich., removed sandbags and built back beaches Wednesday as part of a weeklong service trip to Valley City. On Wednesday, the students worked to remove the temporary levee encircling Scott and Ann Crump’s house just outside of town. The Crump home is one of about 15 that the group expects to help this week. Parts of the city experienced flooding when the Sheyenne River crested last spring. In April, the mayor called for a voluntary evacuation of nearly half the city National Relief Network, a disaster relief organization based out of Greenville, Michigan, coordinated the groups’ efforts. This year, NRN also coordinated flood relief efforts in Dickey, Adrian and Jamestown, said Scott Harding, founder and chief executive officer. “We’re not here to rebuild homes, we’re here to rebuild hope,” Harding said. NRN contacted North Dakota officials to see which areas needed the most help, he said. Then, NRN matches organizations like the Church of Resurrection High School Youth Group with families in those areas. Help is relatively easy to find in a crisis, he said. But after the water recedes, the volunteers typically do too. People get busy, they don’t know their neighbors need help or they forget. But that’s exactly one of the missions of NRN, he said: to let victims know others still care. In fact, NRN was founded on what Harding calls the 11th commandment: “If you can help and choose not to, that’s a sin,” he said. For the Crumps, the Valley City evacuation lasted 11 days, Ann said. Before the couple and their four children left, more than 100 volunteers stepped up to build the 5-foot dike around the home. “Apparently, we have the biggest dike in Barnes County,” Ann said. And while the volunteer efforts saved the home, help isn’t as easy to find after the flood, she said. That’s why the family contacted the National Relief Network when her husband heard volunteers would be in town. “We didn’t know how we were going to do it,” she said, as teenagers heaved 40-pound packs of sand behind her. One of those teenagers was Kristin Moore, 17. Already, Moore has volunteered on six mission-like trips across the country. The work is hard, she said. But it makes her feel good. “I mean, it was a little painful but it was amazing,” she said. Like Moore, the teenagers plan to prep and paint city playground equipment, repair private and commercial property and dump sandbags at the North Dakota Winter Show building before the week is over. Their arms and knees were dirty and their clothing was stained, Wednesday but when helping people, they witness “amazing hope,” Moore said. “You feel like you can change the world after workcamp,” she said. Sun reporter Katie Ryan can be reached at 701-952-8454 or by e-mail at kryan@jamestownsun.com

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