A Minnesota Lutheran volunteer group that first came to Haines in 2023 to aid in landslide recovery returned this month for its third, and potentially final year in town.
The group’s work, largely wood processing this year, has evolved since it started. In the immediate aftermath of the slide, Anchorage Lutheran organization Alaska Mission for Christ sponsored a different group from Arizona to help in immediate recovery work, including mucking out basements and fuel tanks, replacing saturated building materials, and moving a shed that had been pushed off its foundations, the group’s host, Port Chilkoot Bible Church Minister Matt Jones said.
That group did not return in 2021, and Jones said it was replaced the following year by the current group from Minnesota, also sponsored by Alaska Mission for Christ.
Since 2022, with much of the immediate landslide recovery work finished, the group has focused on more general community service tasks. This year, the eight-person team focused mainly on processing firewood, which will be distributed through the Haines Presbyterian Church and Klukwan Church.
Jones said that wood goes to residents physically unable to process their own wood, unable to afford processed wood, new to town, or a combination of the three. That includes community members both in and outside of the specific church congregations. In total, the group bucked, split and stacked more than 12 cords of firewood.
Volunteer Greg Raether, of Minneapolis suburb Maple Grove, was on wood-stacking duty for one of those full days of wood processing. Raether, who is recently retired, said that he was feeling sore. However, he said that seeing all the wood piles in town was an indication of need, and he felt the work had an impact.
The community wood processing is something local church volunteers already do once a week at the Presbyterian Church, Jones said. But the outside volunteers working full days scales up the effort.
“When you get a crew with three splitters and a couple of chainsaws, we can do that for four days and we have it all done,” Jones said. “Otherwise, we go all summer and we feel like we barely get the work done.”
The group also replaced siding and gardening at the Haines Senior Village, and helped with projects in the homes of some seniors, including fixing windows. Jones said he takes the lead in deciding what projects the group takes on each year.
“I kind of keep my ear to the ground throughout the year, listening when I’m at the fire department or the police department, at our ministerial association meetings,” Jones said. “We see what fits the skills of the team that’s coming that year and try to make that happen. Firewood is a consistent thing.”
With year three for the Minnesota group now in the books, it’s not clear whether it’ll be back. Raether and Jones said the Alaska Mission for Christ groups operate on a three-year timeline, hoping to stay long enough to build relationships, but still moving from community to community.
After this year, Raether said, the group will lose funding from Alaska Mission for Christ, and potentially the home church in Minnesota.
“We’ll have to see if [the church] wants to continue their financial support,” Raether said. “If they don’t, we as a group have to decide if we’ll pick up those lost finances and keep coming.”
While the future is uncertain, Raether seemed to value the ability to return to the same community, year after year.
“This year we had fewer visitors while we were working,” Raether said. “But that kind of told us that we were kind of welcomed here. People aren’t checking us out to see what’s going on, and that felt really good.”