Saratoga News

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Congregants gather to assemble hygiene kits for disaster victims

By Shannon Burkey

Nearly 600 people, lined up in assembly-line fashion, gathered at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Saratoga on March 17 to assemble hygiene kits for victims of natural disasters around the world.

For the second year in a row, the church has taken on the task of assembling the kits, and this year 9,990 kits were prepared.

"Our church has been pretty persistent about sending these kits out to people around the world," said John Hodgman, president of the church. "It's really touching. We have a real extensive welfare system here."

For years, the church's headquarters in Salt Lake City has been contributing to humanitarian efforts around the world.

"Our church really is as big of an operation as the Red Cross," said Ray Froess.

Last year, the entire organization sent out more than a million hygiene kits to disaster victims in 48 countries. The Saratoga church contributed to that by assembling 2,200 hygiene kits. They also assembled 2,200 school kits and collected 550 receiving blankets for low-income newborns at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose.

And it's not just Mormons who benefit from the generosity of the church.

"Last year, 98 percent of all our humanitarian aid went to members not of our faith," Hodgman said. "It's pretty far-reaching."

This year, the efforts of the Saratoga church set a church record in California for the most kits assembled in a day. In just four hours, 18,500 pounds of items such as combs, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and hand towels were assembled into kits.

"It's terrific. Everybody likes to set a record, but one of the most important things here is quality control," Froess said. "Even though we set a record, our goal was to make sure everything was done right."

To ensure that each kit was of top-notch quality, 40 members of the Saratoga church were trained in quality control in Salt Lake City before the event. And before any of the 600 people were allowed into the assembly room to help, they were also trained and then supervised by those who were trained in Salt Lake City. As a result of the extra training, the kits will be allowed to go directly to a distribution warehouse to be shipped out.

"The direct advantage is that they are ready to go. The normal procedure is to unpack and reinspect everything to make sure it's done right."