I'm Robin Finegan the Regional Administrator for FEMA Region 8. I'm here in Minot, North Dakota, today at a church that they are rebuilding and repairing after being inundated with the flood for over 3 weeks. They're going to use this church to house volunteers that are coming here to Minot, to work on homes in the community that need to be repaired. 

FEMA is just part of the team and the biggest part of that team is the community and the volunteers that come forward in a time of disaster. If it weren't for the volunteers and how much they provide to the citizens, to their neighbors, the neighbor helping neighbor concept that FEMA is trying to push out there, we could not do it without them.

Our volunteers come for a variety of reasons. Perhaps first of all because they understand in their heart that somebody's life has been harmed, somebody's family has been harmed or somebody's community has been harmed. And we have the responsibility to be each other's keeper in that regard. We need to take care of each other when harm happens. One of the fringe benefits of working is that in disaster responses, that we always understand how blessed we are in our own lives. We understand that there's a tremendous privilege to serve those that have been harmed, such as a flood here in Minot. The cost of being a volunteer, first of all you have to give up your vacation time, or some of us give up employment, leave without pay, in order to come and volunteer. Many times, some family members take care of the farm or the business back home and carry extra burdens of that way so that some family members can come and serve. One of the things I noticed about our volunteers, they have a tremendously good time with each other as they deal with unspeakable contents of family's homes. We also train our volunteers and encourage them to enter each home with respect because this is a home, even though it's been invaded by flood or tornado, including whatever pollutents come along with that. But in the long run none of us leaves the disaster site the way that we came. We are sobered by what other people have experienced in a time of disaster and we feel actually honored and privileged to be able to help them to deal with that kind of reality.

The plan was MDS and with us is that they want to get our church reconstructed, built back. As soon as that's done they want to have this for their volunteer center and then they can help people in the community. We need, they need a place where they can have all of their volunteers stay uninterrupted, and so we agreed to do that. They're gonna build the church back and basically we can use our sanctuary and they're gonna use the rest of the building for volunteers. And hopefully, once, like I say, once the building's done, then they can help the community. And they're already doing that even now even though the church isn't completed.