Volunteers assist Pajaro Flood Victims

The levee break and massive flooding of the Pajaro River which separates the counties of Santa Cruz and Monterey left many residents with nothing to do but clean out their homes and begin anew. About 200 homes were heavily damaged or destroyed in the flood and about 3,000 people were displaced. A large percentage of people living in Pajaro are the working poor, toiling hard to make a better life for themselves and their families. The flood left most families in the town devastated with household furnishings and personal items ruined.

Volunteers from neighboring communities responded to the call to help with the cleanup. They worked in the area removing sandbags and shoveling mud from resident’s homes and helping with the “muck removal”. Residents were grateful and even surprised by those who came to help. One volunteer said that “The community reception was somewhere between sentimental (a few tears) to surprise (normally exhibited with laughter).

Another comment was, “…as we would go from neighborhood to neighborhood, we started to realize that community people were joining us and going to the next neighborhood to help their neighbors.”

Elder Brent Knudsen, San Jose Service Mission Leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said it was a great experience being able to help in the community. One hundred missionaries and members from the San Jose / Santa Cruz area were among the volunteers. He said everyone worked hard. After watching some young sister missionaries carry 3-4 sandbags at a time and keeping up with the men, a county sheriff said, “Who are these people and where do you get them?”. Elder Knudsen explained they were missionaries, and they serve full-time from 18 months to 2 years, the sheriff laughed and said, “We need more of them!”.

"We're going into people's homes because they needed help or couldn't do it themselves," Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo said. "With these volunteers, it's really making a big difference. In a matter of a few minutes, we can get a lot out — something that would have taken some of these owners all day to do."