Pitching in to help families get their lives back together after Hurricane Florence.

Shannon, a single mom, had no idea how to get rid the two large trees that were blown over onto the roof of her home. Then a team of Scientology Volunteer Ministers (VMs) walked up to the house carrying chainsaws. They borrowed a ladder from the neighbors, cut down and hauled away the trees and laid down a tarp on her roof to protect the house from rain—a temporary fix for the damage the trees had caused.

At another home, toppled trees were completely blocking the driveway. The VMs quickly handled that including chopping the trees up into firewood.

There is a tremendous amount of work still to do. When flood waters recede, the arduous task of salvaging belongings began. This includes removing furniture and tearing out rugs and damaged drywall and drying the house out to prevent the mold and mildew from spreading.

Although downgraded to a tropical storm by the time she made landfall, Hurricane Florence roared through the Carolinas at 85 mph, uprooting trees and toppling power lines and flooding entire communities. She dropped 36 inches of rain on the region.

While teams of VMs are helping families cleaning up damage and mucking out homes, others are working in shelters, organizing and distributing food and supplies and taking and taking on any other needed tasks.

But physical damage is not the only liability of disasters like this. Sometimes the emotional and spiritual damage is just as severe or worse. When a person is hit with so much destruction, they can become hopeless or apathetic, making it far more difficult to get on with their lives. Here is where Scientology Volunteer Ministers shine. They are trained in a body of Scientology called Scientology assists, techniques developed by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard that address the mental and spiritual factors in stress and trauma and use them liberally with victims at disaster sites wherever they occur

“The results of Scientology assists are truly miraculous,” says the Scientology Volunteer Ministers International Disaster Response Coordinator. Volunteer Ministers routinely describe the remarkable change in a person’s emotional tone, energy level and outlook on life, even with those who felt completely overwhelmed.

The Assists for Accidents and Injury Course is one of the free online courses available through the Volunteer Ministers website and Scientology.org.

The Church of Scientology Volunteer Minister program is a religious social service created in the mid-1970s by L. Ron Hubbard. Anyone of any culture or creed may train as a Volunteer Minister and use these tools to help their families and communities. The Church provides free online training on the Volunteer Ministers website.

In creating the Volunteer Ministers program, L. Ron Hubbard wrote, “If one does not like the crime, cruelty, injustice and violence of this society, he can do something about it. He can become a Volunteer Minister and help civilize it, bring it conscience and kindness and love and freedom from travail by instilling into it trust, decency, honesty and tolerance.”