CROCKETT, Texas — Community members are stepping up all over East Texas to help those in need following Monday night severe storms.
A community group in Houston County are helping to define the term, "Crockett Strong," through their actions.
"In the last 24 hours I’ve seen the county of Houston come together and different volunteers [from] all over kind of do their thing. And we all come together and combine.," Keisha Thomas, Owner of Keisha's Cafés said. "At the Civic Center Jessica was one of the very first ones here. She had a table ready, donations ready to take. She had clothes, she had food, she had water."
"Outreach is my passion, people are my purpose and my lights are actually still out, they’re not gonna be on till about 9 o’clock tonight so I said I’m not going to sit here in the bed. I’m going to get up," Jessica James, Crockett volunteer said. "I gathered things from my house and made a clarion call to the community and as you can see our resource table was filled."
These were just a few of the hundreds of Crockett volunteers trying to comfort their neighbors in their time of need.
"What we did from Keisha’s café was kind of piggyback on that. So we knew that these first responders and some of the people in the community we’re going to need some hot fresh or cold cut sandwiches, food ready to go," Thomas said. "We went into action, thank you to all of the people who donated, thank you to Pizza Hut locally, thank you to Walmart, thank you to Embers Inn hotel. This is Gabriel, with his family and sister Katie he stepped up and got things done."
"It has been fun helping people to get the food that they’ve needed and the clothes that they needed since the storm picked them up," Katie Angerstein, Crockett volunteer said.
Jessica said the Crockett community center will remain open for those needing supplies and you can also donate there as well as at a number of businesses around the city.
"Not being told and just stepping into action. That’s the kind of leadership that we have in the community of Crockett," Thomas said. "And that’s what we do here in Houston County and that’s what makes us so strong."